The Chaplain's War

by Brad R Torgersen

  I wondered how Fleet had managed to make the jumpspace crossing in less time than the mantes themselves—maybe the Queen Mother’s flagship had loitered too long in real space, during one of its periodic stops? I remembered that there had been several. If human ships had rushed headlong, with no interruption . . .

  “It’s vital that the Queen Mother be allowed to initiate the recall,” I said. “That was our whole reason for coming here.”

  “Where is Captain Adanaho?”

  “Dead,” I said.

  “Killed in action?”

  “Fratricide, if you must know. The marines who found us in the canyon were shooting indiscriminately, once the mantis counterpatrol dropped down on top of us. Her body’s in stasis on this ship.”

  “We don’t have much time,” Thukhan said.

  “Tell me about it. Is your objective to claim the Queen Mother as a prisoner—for use as a bargaining chip?”

  “Essentially,” he said. “That was Captain Adanaho’s stated desire, and Fleet Command agreed with her assessment. We need the Queen Mother alive.”

  “It’s no good,” I replied. “Her own people already consider her to be under my control, and they’ve cut her out of the loop. Unless she’s perceived to be operating according to her own will, they won’t listen to her. Not even their automated systems are responding to her codes.”

  “It’s true,” said a vocoded voice.

  The Queen Mother floated out of the cockpit.

  The marines brought their weapons up, but Platoon Sergeant Thukhan waved them down with a knife-hand sweeping to the deck.

  “Queen Mother,” Thukhan said officiously, “I’ve got specific orders from Fleet Command to take you into custody. Please come with me, and you will not be harmed.”

  “It’s a dead end!” I shouted. “Didn’t you just hear what I said? She’s no good to us as a prisoner. Her own people won’t care if we have her. Our only hope is to let her go. Let her do what she has intended to do ever since Captain Adanaho died. In fact, I am ordering you to let her go.”

  “I don’t have to recognize your authority on this,” Thukhan said.

  “Bullshit, Sergeant. Protocol is that you’re obliged to followed the lawful orders of a superior officer, and that’s me. You’re certainly free to file a protest through your company commander, but at this moment I’ve got rank, and I’m using it.”

  Thukhan got nose-to-nose with me.

  “I could kill you right now and nobody would say a word,” he breathed.

  The hostility in his eyes was oh-so-familiar.

  “Yeah, you could,” I said. “But I have to think if you’ve survived this long—reached your current rank—that you’ve learned a thing or two since we were knocking heads back in IST. You don’t respect me and I don’t respect you. But this isn’t about us. This is about the future of Earth. Our survival, as the human race. I don’t know what kind of strategy Fleet thinks will turn the tide against the mantes, but the numbers don’t lie. We’ve caught up to them in terms of some of their technology, but not in terms of population. Way more of them. Less of us. They have more planets, and have had more time to populate them. They also work far better as a society than we do, if what I’ve learned in the last few days is accurate. So I don’t care what kind of tricks intel has cooked up—stealth ships, or whatever—the mantes are the ones who are going to eventually win. Battle by battle. Planet by planet. They will drive us back to the brink, and then push us over it. Unless we help the Queen Mother complete her recall.”

  Thukhan glared into my eyes, his jaw flexing.

  “Think about it,” I said. “How many battles have you fought on the ground? In space? When could we actually claim to have had an upper hand? Never, that’s when.”

  “So we just let her go?” he said indignantly. “A lot of people died for this mission. You always were a pussy, Barlow.”

  “And you were always determined to fight the world at every step,” I said, staring him right back in the eyes. “Even fighting people who never had anything against you in the first place.”

  “Please,” said the Queen Mother to Thukhan. “I am defenseless. I have no weapons. Your superior officer is correct. In your custody, I can do nothing. I must be allowed to reach the staging base. I can attempt to effect a cease-fire. Without such a cease-fire, I firmly believe that the human species will die. We have thousands of ships and potentially billions of soldiers at our disposal. How many humans are there in the entire galaxy? How large is your Fleet? Not large enough, I suspect.”

  “It’s just a matter of time,” I said, my expression pleading.

  Thukhan’s eyes went from me, to the Queen Mother, then back to me.

  “No,” he said. “My orders were quite clear. Now if you’ll kindly get out of the way, sir, I’m going to carry out those orders.”

  “Eff that,” I said, refusing to move.

  “Out of the way, cunt—”

  “No way,” I said, standing fast. “I’m giving you a direct order to back off and—”

  The little craft was rocked by another blast, this time directly against the ship. Everyone inside was thrown to the deck. I fell on my wounded side, and screamed because of the pain.

  “My people now respond to yours,” said the Queen Mother.

  I pawed my way over to the open belly hatch and peered out. If the marines had achieved a period of shock and surprise, the mantis backlash was that of a relentless wave. Hundreds and hundreds of mantis troops were belching out into the hangar from numerous hatches along the internal bulkheads. Marines were getting mowed down right and left, unable to hold position as the mantes swept across them.

  Thukhan came up beside me and looked out as well. He spat curses, and then ordered his squad into motion. They formed up around the Queen Mother, weapons aimed at the open hatch while Thukhan put his helmet back on and resealed the collar.

  “You better get ready,” Thukhan said over the external speaker in the side of his helmet. “Something tells me they’re not going to care if you’re a marine or not when they hit us.”

  “No!” I yelled.

  I sat up painfully and looked at the Queen Mother.

  “Can’t you order them to stop?” I said.

  “I’ve been completely cut off from the command nexus,” she said. “Short of trying to face them in person, there doesn’t seem to be much I can do.”

  “No way,” Thukhan said. “I’m not letting her go.”

  I stared hard at her, then at Thukhan—who had his rifle up, and was clearly prepared to start shooting at whatever came up through the hatch at us. Or the Queen Mother, if she tried to make a break for it.

  Outside the hatch, all human resistance was being put down—in merciless fashion. The weaponry of the mantes didn’t sound precisely the same as human guns, but it was obvious that Thukhan, his squad, and I, were shortly going to be the only humans left alive in the whole hangar.

  Then . . .

  I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.

  The end. Death. And not even a hero’s demise. We’d die stupidly, for stupid reasons.

  I couldn’t accept it. I refused to accept it. To go through so much and come all this way . . .

  I suddenly remembered what Adanaho had whispered to me moments before she had died. And I thought again of the hateful mantis soldier who’d been unable to kill me, despite his desire. Simply because I refused to offer any resistance. I watched the moving wall of mantis troops close around our little ship. At best, Thukhan and I had seconds to live.

  I closed my eyes, and the world got strangely quiet. All I could hear was the rhythm of my own blood hammering in my ears.

  I knew I had no right to plead. But—

  Alright, I thought quickly, if ever there was a time in this whole lousy life when I needed help the most, God, this would be it. Please. If you are there—if the spirits of people like the Professor and Captain Adanaho matter at all—let me make a difference just one last time!

>   I dropped out of the hatch and rolled, the pain in my side almost too much to bear. When I stood up, I threw my hands into the air—no rifle.

  I held them high.

  “We surrender!”

  My eyes were closed, of course. I couldn’t bring myself to watch.

  When the rounds hit, I just hoped they’d hit in such number that I’d never know it.

  Only . . . they didn’t.

  “We surrender!” I yelled a second time.

  I could hear the humming of their discs so close, I could almost touch the metal.

  I dared to open my eyes.

  A small sea of mantis warriors had surrounded the craft, all of them aimed in towards me with their weapons trained and their postures as aggressive and menacing as could be. Yet, not a one of them attacked. They simply looked at me, their individual antennae vibrating and shivering with mixed expressions of surprise and confusion.

  My rifle sat useless on the deck at my feet. I kept my hands in the air, despite the immense pain in my side, and the additional flow of blood that I felt running down into my waistband.

  One of the mantis soldiers hovered forward until the edge of his disc touched my sternum.

  “I have seen images of you. You are the human called Padre.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The Queen Mother had respect for you. Does she live?”

  “Here,” the Queen Mother’s voice said as she hovered down out of the ship. “This human—indeed all of these humans—are under my authority. They are not to be harmed.”

  I turned my head back to see Thukhan and the others standing at the hatch’s edge, their rifles nowhere to be found and their arms raised high; just like mine. I wrinkled my brow at Thukhan, who was looking down at me with an almost astonished expression.

  The Queen Mother hovered up to the mantis warrior in front of me, and they appeared to communicate silently between them—carriages networked.

  She turned to Thukhan and the other marines.

  “Climb down,” she commanded. “And come with me.”

  The marines did as they were told, and the mantis troops made a corridor through which she rapidly passed.

  I struggled to keep up with Thukhan as he and the others marched quickly. Hands still over their heads.

  “I thought for sure you’d go down fighting,” I said to him.

  “I couldn’t pull the trigger,” he said. “When she saw you jump out the hatch, she moved right past me, and I couldn’t shoot her. Something inside just sort of said it wasn’t worth it. Especially when the troops on the deck didn’t open fire on you. I know you think I’m a complete asshole. But I do value the lives of my marines. You’d just better be right, about this working out in the end.”

  I watched the side of his head as we walked quickly. He deliberately didn’t look back, though I am sure he could see me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Where are we going?” I shouted to the Queen Mother up ahead. Our lone technician had fallen in behind me, with the heads and eyes of the mass of mantis soldiers in the hangar swiveling to watch us as we went.

  “The command nexus,” she said. “We must communicate with my fleet, and yours!”

  CHAPTER 54

  THE TRIP TO THE FLAGSHIP’S EQUIVALENT OF A BRIDGE WAS resumed.

  “If you’re still locked out,” I yelled ahead, “how in the hell are we supposed to get there?”

  “I will make us a way,” The Queen Mother said.

  I didn’t have the breath to argue. The pain in my side had become almost too much to bear standing up. I began to fall behind. Thukhan—of all people—slowed, then put a shoulder under the arm on my good side, and helped me forward.

  “You’d better be effing right about this,” he said to me.

  “Yes,” I wheezed. “I certainly hope I am.”

  We pushed through scene after scene of human and mantis carnage. Fleet had committed at least several companies of marines to taking the ship, and so far as I could tell—as we wound our way down several corridors—Thukhan and his squad might be the only ones left alive.

  When we were confronted with shut bulkheads or stalled lift tubes, we took still other turns through other corridors, passageways, and even a short trip down another maintenance shaft—albeit a shallow, single-story affair. All the while, rumblings through the structure told us that the war outside the flagship was ongoing, even if the fight within had come down decisively in the mantes’ favor.

  Finally, we arrived at a very large set of sealed pressure doors.

  The Queen Mother hovered defiantly before them, trying her codes. When they did not work, she floated up to them and banged her functional forelimb on the metal several times.

  Two small hatches to either side of the doors popped open and armed mantis warriors came out, their weapons trained on us all. The Queen Mother glared at them, her antennae erect and dignified.

  “What are they doing?” Thukhan asked.

  “She’s demanding entry,” I guessed. “The guards have orders from inside to not permit her—”

  The Queen Mother faced back towards us, and pointed with a forelimb.

  “—and she’s indicating we’re unarmed,” I said.

  Several moments passed.

  Finally, the large doors unsealed and hummed open on their motors. Inside, a contingent of harried mantes were clustered around several oval tables that projected out of the deck. Holographic displays were suspended in the air over each table, and though the scene was mostly silent, it had the look of tremendous agitation.

  When the Queen Mother floated into their midst, every mantis in the command nexus stopped to watch her. She looked around at them, antennae still erect—challenging any of them to deny her right to rule.

  I stared at the holographic imagery over one of the tables. Differently colored symbols were spread across the air: some of them blinking, others swirling, and still others gradually disintegrating until they were but wispy motes of nothingness.

  “How many Fleet ships?” I asked Thukhan quietly.

  “Classified,” he said.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “The only one who doesn’t know at this point is me,” I said.

  “Twenty,” he said. “The mission briefing told us ten would go in hot against the staging base, while the rest would hang back near the system’s most likely exit points—for mantis ships coming out of jumpspace. We hit everything that came through, hoping that one of them would be yours. And that the Queen Mother would be alive and aboard.”

  “What about the rest of the war?” I asked. “How bad has it been?”

  “Fleet won’t say,” Thukhan said, keeping a straight face. “But we’re here, right? You said it yourself. How could Fleet Command commit so many marines and ships? Draw your own conclusions, Chief.”

  So. I’d been right. Seizing the Queen Mother was a desperate gambit. I wished to hell I could hear what she was saying to her subordinates.

  “Do they accept your authority?” I asked.

  “On this ship, for the moment, yes,” she said. “But until the battle with your Fleet attack armada is concluded, the staging base is refusing my requests.”

  “Do we have any officers aboard who can talk to Fleet?” I asked Thukhan.

  “Marine captains arguing with Fleet generals? Good luck. Besides, did you see anyone left alive to ask?”

  “No,” I said. “But what was the plan, assuming your boarding parties were actually able to take the Queen Mother into custody? Surely you have a signal.”

  “We do,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “what are you waiting for?”

  “If I use it, Fleet will be expecting immediate liftoff from one of the assault carriers that’s resting on the hull of this ship, and I don’t even know if any of those assault carriers are still intact.”

  I looked to the Queen Mother.

  “Well?”

  She quickly discussed it carriage-to-carriage with her officers.


  “No,” she said. “All of the human ships which had attached to our hull have been destroyed. As was the main vessel from which they were launched.”

  Thukhan sighed, then pulled his helmet off. The rest of his squad did the same.

  “Then we’re screwed,” he said.

  I watched the holographic display. It wasn’t hard to guess which color was assigned to Fleet, based on the dwindling numbers.

  “Won’t we retreat?” I asked him.

  “No,” he said. “The orders were to bring the Queen Mother back alive.”

  “Or?” I pressed.

  “Or . . . the briefing didn’t give us instructions beyond that point. Bring the Queen Mother back alive. That was all.”

  I suddenly felt faint. Whether because of shock from my injury, or the realization that nothing could be done to stop the battle.

  “Please put me down,” I said to Thukhan.

  He walked me over to one of the bulkheads—mantis eyes staring at us as we walked into the command nexus—and helped me take a seat on the deck. I hugged my hurt side under one arm and kept the opposite hand clamped over the wound as I slowly put my knees up and leaned my forehead onto them.

  Sick. I felt sick at the fact that nothing could be done.

  “Talk to the Fleet,” I muttered.

  “I told you—” Thukhan said, but I cut him off.

  “No, not you. Queen Mother, talk to my people. They obviously know who you are and they know your value. Send out a blanket broadcast. Platoon Sergeant Thukhan will know the encryption key for our combat network. If you broadcast to our ships using that key, it should tell them something about your intentions. Maybe they’ll have the good sense to listen, and back off, before your ships finish tearing our ships to pieces. Once the remainder of our ships clear out of the system, your staging base should allow us to make contact and issue new instructions on your side. Right?”

  “That is probable,” she said.

  I looked up at Thukhan. “Give her the key.”

  A few moments later, the Queen Mother was floating in front of a second oval table with a camera and an audio pickup projected from the surface.