“It was chaos,” the Queen Mother said. “The Professor may or may not have shared this, but long ago, during the time of the First Expansion, the mantes were not nearly as cohesive as we are now. There was great discord and division, although I do not think it approaches what you have described as being common on Earth. When the earliest carriages were developed—it is believed—the Quorum of the Select mandated that all pupating mantes be given as much advanced preparation for their healthy participation in society as possible. It has greatly helped us to maintain peace and harmony ever since. Every mantis has his or her place, and every mantis is happy in his or her place.”
I said nothing. Such language—spoken on Earth—had been used by rulers throughout history to justify castes and permanent stratification of society. Or worse. It was fairly grotesque to hear such language coming out of the Queen Mother’s mouth. It was even more grotesque to see my three tech helpers happily agreeing with the Queen Mother. Yet another reminder that while mantes minds and human minds worked equally well, our thoughts could often be very far apart.
“So the Professor did not decide on his own to become a Professor,” I said.
“He could have resisted this,” she said. “But why would he?”
“Why would any of us?” said one of the technicians.
“When we are doing our work, we are happiest,” said another.
I resisted the urge to shudder.
“It is not so for humans?”
I shook my head vigorously.
“Humans seldom have just one occupation in their lives. And while we spend a lot of time schooling, and parents especially can sometimes try to direct their children into a specific path or vocation, whether or not that child actually chooses to remain on that path or in that vocation for the long-term is a matter for the individual to decide.”
Now it was the mantes’ turn to give me the funny looks. All four of them backed away ever so slightly. The Queen Mother seemed especially uncomfortable, based on the agitation in her movements.
“You will leave now,” she said.
The technicians exited without a word of protest.
“Clearly,” I said, “there are great differences between our people, in addition to great similarities.”
“Clearly,” she said.
“This templating process you describe,” I said, “if it were applied on Earth it would be considered grossly immoral.”
“Why?”
“Because in the past when it has been applied—albeit externally, through a combination of indoctrination, force of law, and violence—it’s been condemned. Either in the moment, or by history. As a rule, we humans prize our independence and our right to choose.”
“Mantes are also independent,” she said.
“Yes, but apparently only to a point. You’re the Queen Mother because from birth you were slotted to be among the people who might be chosen for that role. The Professor was a researcher because he was preselected for the job. In most human societies we resist that kind of thing. Though, as I said, there have been governments, societies, and even religions, which have tried.”
“And what has your independence gotten you?” she said. “You said it, padre: humanity squandered its resources and its potential by fighting with itself, instead of uniting and pooling all talent, energy, and material towards a common goal—or set of common goals.”
I was really getting uncomfortable now. She must have smelled it in the air.
“I will now return to the delicate process of adjusting and removing components of my carriage,” she said.
“Of course,” I said.
She hovered towards the open door. Halfway out she turned back to me and said, “Just because we mantes have a certain way of doing things, and of being, and of thinking, I am not sure that means we’re wrong.”
“Just because we humans have a certain way of doing, and being, and thinking, that doesn’t mean we’re wrong either.”
She looked at me.
I looked right back.
She left, and the door closed without another word.
Chapter 52
Later that day, the Queen Mother reappeared in my doorway.
“We are near to arrival,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “The sooner we can get started, the sooner we can save lives.”
“I want to apologize if I offended,” she said.
“Me too,” I admitted. “I feel like our last conversation didn’t necessarily end on the friendliest note.”
“I detected no music,” she said
“It’s a human turn of phrase,” I said. “It means we didn’t leave with the best feeling or understanding of each other.”
“I see. Well, come with me, padre,” she said. “I would like to take you to our ship’s command nexus.”
I walked out into the corridor. Not only were the three technicians present, but a squad of armed soldier mantes as well.
“Royal guard?” I asked her, pointing to the troops.
“You could say that,” she said.
We proceeded slowly, with all the other mantes on the ship giving us a wide berth as we passed.
Again I noted how wrong human assumptions had been, regarding mantes ship design and architecture. No slime, no stench, no bizarrely nestlike or hivelike honeycombing. The bulkheads and the decks and the superstructure were as ordinary and, indeed, comfortingly plain, as that which could be found aboard a Fleet vessel. I let myself peek through hatches that opened and closed along our route, which revealed other technicians and soldiers and mantes whose roles I couldn’t guess at, moving to and fro in quiet harmony.
Though I suspected if I could “hear” the communication between their carriages, I’d be bombarded with a cacophony of conversation.
A tiny audible warble came from the ceiling.
“We have returned to conventional propulsion,” the Queen Mother said. “It will only be a little while longer before we dock.”
“Space station?” I asked.
“One of many,” she replied. “This system is one of our most developed forward systems, near to what you would call the border between our peoples. A great deal of military and civilian traffic passes through this place. From here I can dispatch couriers to the other deploying bases, and attempt to begin the recall. I will also be able to assess how effective our offensive has been to date—how much damage has been done to human colonies.”
“Or mantis colonies,” I said.
The Queen Mother looked at me—her antennae curled with mild irony.
I figured she didn’t need to be reminded of the fact that our most recent planet of residence had still been in play at the time of our departure. For all we knew, the Fleet had prevailed and the Queen Mother’s flagship was the only mantis survivor to have departed. Or perhaps Fleet had been utterly smashed, and the world—indeed, the whole system—was in mantis possession.
We should know soon.
Suddenly, there was a rumble through the deck. Then another, louder rumble. A differently-pitched warble sounded in the air, and the soldiers around us quickly formed a defensive ring around the Queen Mother.
Her antennae were quivering.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“We are…we are being attacked.”
“Attacked?” I said, startled. “By whom?”
A third, louder rumble. I stumbled and caught myself on the edge of one of the technician’s discs.
There was a pause.
“Your Fleet,” said the Queen Mother. “Human warships. Many of them. The entire staging base is under attack. There are…we have come out of jumpspace into the middle of a battle!”
I blinked.
Of all the things I’d expected when we reached our destination, this hadn’t been on the list. How Fleet had managed to locate the base was a mystery, to say nothing of how Fleet had found a way to spare the ships for a deep-penetration attack. Sakumora and his people had apparently been more clever th
an I’d given them credit for.
I remembered that Adanaho had mentioned stealth missions. Perhaps one of them had chanced across this place? That it was under siege either boded very well for the human side of the equation, or it was a desperate maneuver designed to distract the Fourth Expansion. Put them on a defensive footing. Buying time for Earth?
I suddenly had so many questions. But as had happened on the Calysta, there was no time. Like déjà vu, we were being plunged into a cataclysm entirely beyond our control.
The artificial gravity wavered. I felt my stomach waver.
A third, louder, bass-heavy warble began to sound continuously.
The armed contingent around us began to move. The Queen Mother seemed as confused as I was, what with herself, me, and the technicians all being swept down a side corridor—away from our original path through the bowels of the mantis ship.
“What’s happening?” I yelled over the noise.
“Hull breaches,” the Queen Mother said, her speaker grille belying the fear that she felt. “We are being boarded”
Boarded?
“Human marines,” I guessed.
“Yes! My guards are tasked with defending me with their lives. We are being taken to a safe place within the ship where it will be difficult for intruders to reach. Padre, do not let yourself be separated from me. I cannot guarantee your safety otherwise.”
I momentarily considered breaking for it and trying to find my way to an exterior passage—somewhere I might run into humans. The Queen Mother didn’t really need me anymore. She’d be able to recall her people perfectly fine without me. And I certainly couldn’t offer her any more protection than the guards who had been posted to her. With their armored carriages, replete with lethal weapons.
But then…no.
Any mantis happening across me during a hostile boarding action was liable to mistake me for one of the marines, and shoot me on sight.
I kept up with the Queen Mother as best I was able, jogging while the rest of them cruised on their carriage impellers.
We halted at the hatch for what appeared to be a lift tube.
The only thing distinctly different about the mantis ship was that there were no obvious buttons or switches. Everything seemed to operate by proximity sensor, or according to the silent broadcasts of the carriages themselves. When we waited at the lift tube door for too long—additional concussive blasts sounding through the ship, letting us know that there was precious little time to waste—the Queen Mother engaged in a quick exchange with her guards. The lot of them huddled: conversing carriage-to-carriage.
“This way,” she said.
And suddenly we were moving rapidly away from the lift tube complex, back the way we’d come.
“Malfunction?” I asked.
“Emergency override,” the Queen Mother answered. “Because we have hostile forces inside the vessel, all means of mechanized travel are suspended until further notice. Per ship’s protocol. We must hurry. If we don’t get to one of the—”
The Queen Mother was cut off as we rounded a corner and came face to face with a squad of humans. The marines were clad in space armor not too different from the sort I’d trained in, back in the day. Only this model appeared even more flexible and robust than what I’d been wearing when I landed on Purgatory. The face plates were silvered against blast flashes, and each marine had his or her rifle up—the descendent model of the R77A5, no doubt.
There was an instant of hostile recognition between the Queen Mother’s guards, and the marines. Then the shooting started.
I flattened to the deck as weaponry belched instant death over my head.
Mantis warriors died. Human warriors died.
When it was over, the marine squad had been obliterated. But only two of the Queen Mother’s guards remained, the others having been perforated by the automatic moose-caliber antipersonnel fire from the marines’ rifles. Mantis gore and human gore was spread sickly on the bulkheads and across the deck. So much so that I wrinkled my nose and averted my eyes.
“Come,” said the Queen Mother, and we were off again.
I lost complete track of which way we twisted or turned, as the imagery of the dead marines and mantes replayed over and over across my imagination. I’d seen it all before, of course. But somehow I never quite got used to it—the instant and graphic taking of life. Those marines had had families. The mantes? Probably young. And while obviously slotted for their roles, at least entitled to some kind of future. I permitted myself to feel a moment of pity for them, before we were again confronted by a squad of marines.
Just how many men and women had been tasked with taking our ship? Surely, this was not an accident. There had to be many ships at the staging base. Not all of them could be enduring simultaneous boarding actions. Could they?
I hit the deck again. Only, this time I wasn’t so lucky. One of the rounds from one of the marines grazed a rib. I screamed and rolled onto my side, clutching at the sudden wound. The blood felt hot and slick on my fingers, and for an instant I panicked, imagining a quick bleed-out.
But when both the marines and our royal guard had mutually annihilated each other, I slowly sat up and realized that nothing vital had been hit. Just the rib had been cracked, and I’d need a hell of a lot of stitches to sew the skin back together.
The Queen Mother had been hurt too. One of her forelimbs had three bleeding bullet holes in it. It dangled uselessly across the top of her disc, which appeared to have taken a couple of rounds itself, though it still functioned.
One of the technicians had also been killed.
The marines were a smashed mess of bodies.
Looking around dumbly, I vaguely heard the echoes of other rifle reports much further down the corridor from us. The marines were attacking in force. Which way was safe? Could I protect the Queen Mother long enough for her to complete her task, or would the marines put a magazine of bullets through her thinking she was nothing more than a common mantis shock troop?
I pushed myself into a standing position—ignoring the severe pain in my side—and went to pick up one of the human rifles that lay on the deck. A quick visual inspection confirmed for me that there were still rounds available, and also that the rifle’s function wasn’t too different from what I’d trained on many years before.
“What’s the plan now?” I asked, gingerly stepping back to the Queen Mother. Our two remaining technicians fretted over her wounded forelimb.
“I do not know,” she admitted—if the pain was as bad for her as it was for me, her speaker wasn’t making it apparent. “It would seem your human troops have been far more efficient at penetrating the interior of this ship than I would have thought possible. The ship’s crew will be sealing off every sector now, trying to bottle the humans up, at which point tactical counterstrikes will begin—in an effort to drive the marines off our vessel, or exterminate them where they stand.”
“If my people find us before that, you’re all dead,” I said to the Queen Mother and the technicians. “I suggest you let me stay out in front. They might be hesitant to fire if they see me coming first.”
“Your injury—” one of the technicians said, pointing with a forelimb at my bleeding side and ripped uniform.
“I’d do something about it if I had access to a med pack,” I said. “But that’s back in my room, and we’re obviously not going to make it there any time soon. I’ll just have to hope the bleeding doesn’t get any worse. Sure hurts like a sunuvabitch, though.”
If the technician wondered what I meant by that, he didn’t ask.
“There is a maintenance passageway near here,” the other technician said. “If we can reach it, I suspect we may be able to find a way to hide. Until either one side or the other is successful.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
The technician guided me with words as I walked, my eyes scanning ahead of me and the rifle in my hands at the low ready.
We occasionally passed dead marines and dead
mantes.
The battle for the flagship quickly took on a surreal quality.
Assuming the marines weren’t going to take my word for an answer, was I really prepared to fire on another human being? I’d come close to trying to hurt someone badly once. Maybe, even kill him. I’d been talked out of it at the last second. For which I was quite thankful. Now, things were coming to a head. I really couldn’t see any way around it: if the Queen Mother died, any hope for peace would die with her. Would it be wrong of me to fire on my own kind? Cause casualties? Even if it meant saving lives in the end? Long after the fact?
I wasn’t sure I had the nerve. I hoped to hell I wouldn’t have to find out.
Of course, any armed mantis that discovered us would just blow me to pieces. The rifle in my hands would guarantee it, whether I fired first or not.
Just short of a closed pressure door, the technician indicated a circular panel in the deck. He seemed to signal to the panel’s motors with his disc, then the panel slid downwards and slipped away to the side, revealing a somewhat tall shaft that dropped for several decks.
It was mercifully empty.
I peered down.
“No good,” I said.
“Why?” the Queen Mother asked.
“No ladder,” I said. “I’ll fall.”
The mantes looked at each other, then at me.
“You must ride,” the Queen Mother said.
I cursed, then walked to the rear of her disc and tried to climb up, growling at the pain it caused me. One of the technicians helped me up, while the other floated over and vanished down into the hole. Followed by the Queen Mother herself—with me riding shotgun—and then the second technician behind us. The deck hatch slid out and sealed shut over our heads.
And we were left with only the mechanical hiss and hum of the ship.
We weren’t alone for long.
After maybe five minutes, a new threat presented itself. This time, from below. A trio of armed mantes floated into view, and challenged our presence in the shaft. I could hear none of it, of course, but I could see them peering up at us—up at me—and arming the weapons that projected out of slots on the front of their discs.
The Chaplain's War - eARC Page 32
