She trailed off. I stared at her as she walked. Her eyes were looking straight ahead, but she was clearly lost in reverie.
Instantly, I intuited the truth.
“You were one of them, weren’t you,” I said.
She looked over her shoulder at me.
“Yes I was.”
“How young were you when you went in?”
“Six.”
“Jesus, your parents let you get on VR at that age?”
“It’s the world’s most amazing baby sitter.”
I swallowed hard.
“How old were you when you came out?”
“Fifteen,” she said. “The war was hurting us. The govern-ment began cutting off and rationing resources. My parents unplugged me and sent me to a state rehab school for VR kids. When I was sixteen, they said I was well enough to go stay with my mother’s sister in North Africa, since my parents were denied custody. Auntie hated VR, considered it a tool of the devil, and took me in like the daughter she never had. When I was 18 I joined the Fleet through an ROTC scholarship. When I was 22 I went to space, and never looked back.”
I didn’t say anything for a long time. The captain’s revelation had turned the mood stone-cold sober.
“I think the Queen Mother is going through something similar to what I went through,” Adanaho finally said. “After living her entire life through the technological lens of her disc, she’s suddenly experiencing reality onits terms. I think she’s finding the experience to be revelatory. Old instincts, long suppressed, are coming to the surface. Abilities. Perceptions. A whole new way of seeing and interpreting the world.”
“That’s a hell of a speculation,” I said, shaking my head. “No disrespect ma’am, but can you be sure you’re not just projecting?”
She was silent for a time. Then she reluctantly said, “No.”
We took a few more steps.
“But can you offer any other explanation as to why she’d suddenly leap off a cliff, relying on wings she’s never used to prevent her from falling directly to a gruesome death?”
“No,” I admitted.
“You said it yourself, Chief. It took a leap of faith.”
Again, I had no answer.
Finally we came to a crumbling break in the canyon’s edge. The canyon itself grew wider and the sides less steep. It appeared to me that we could make our way down, provided we took our time. The Professor must have seen this too, because he and the Queen Mother had stopped and were looking up at us expectantly. Waiting.
It took the captain and I the rest of the day to make our way down. When we reached the bottom, the entire canyon was in shadow and the air had begun to chill.
I wished hard for a clutch of driftwood and some matches to light a fire.
None appeared.
While Adanaho set about preparing our camp for the night, I noticed that the Queen Mother kept apart from the Professor. She stayed near the water’s edge, gazing into the swirls and eddies that marked the surface. The water was mostly clear, all the way to the bottom. If I’d thought there might be trout, I’d have rigged a pole and a line. But the Professor’s sensors and my own water test kit revealed the depressing truth: the river was as lifeless as the surface through which it had carved its course. There would be nothing fresh to eat for dinner.
I pulled the Professor aside before we all went to sleep for the night.
“I’ve been wondering,” I said, “about what you told me.”
“Specifically?” he asked.
“Sex. You said the males of your species are in a sexual stupor until they’ve mated with the female producing the pheromone.”
“That’s a close enough description, yes.”
“How in the hell do you mate when you’re still attached to the discs?”
He looked at me, unmoving.
“Very carefully,” was his only reply.
I didn’t have the heart to pester him further.
In the morning we renewed our journey. Whatever I’d thought about building a raft, we simply didn’t have the resources to do it. The emergency inflatable life preservers in our packs might have kept us face up in the river, but the water was so frigid we’d have been risking hypothermia as a result.
So we walked all day, following the river’s edge along the bottom of the canyon. More and more, the Queen Mother tested the strength of her small lower legs. Every time we stopped. She also tested her flight capabilities, flitting from rock to sand bar to the far side of the river, and back again. Whether it was instinct or learned skill, or both, she appeared to be getting distinctly comfortable in that mode.
Every night, the Queen Mother and the captain sought solitude together, while the Professor and I just sat by the water and wondered between us what was happening with our women.
Chapter 12
“We have to get up and go. Now.” It was Adanaho’s voice.
“Why?” I said, suddenly coming up off the sand, despite the aching stiffness in my joints. We were two weeks from landing, our food stores almost gone, but still no closer to finding a mantis base than we’d been before. We’d stayed in the canyon for the water supply, yes, but also to give us shelter from the sand storms that hit every third or fourth day.
I’d grown to like the canyon, despite the gnawing in my belly. Sleep came easily with the sound of the river droning in my ears.
Tonight, my rest was interrupted. Or was it morning? The faintest hint of light was growing above the canyon rim to the east.
“A craft has landed. Not far from here. The Professor says it’s not a mantis vehicle. They will be searching for us, and they will have marines with them.”
She already had her pack snuggly slung over both shoulders.
The Professor held the Queen Mother securely aboard his disc.
“We can’t move quickly on foot,” I said.
“This I know,” said the Professor. “Which is why you must ride with me.”
“Can the disc—your carriage—handle all three passengers?”
“I do not know. But we must try.”
The Professor offered a forelimb.
I helped the captain climb up onto the back of the disc. She hugged her arms around the Professor’s upper thorax, then I climbed aboard too. The disc’s motors whined with additional strain, and for a moment we were all deathly still—waiting for any sound to tell us we’d been noticed. When none came, we began to slowly float forward.
“How did our people find us?” I asked Adanaho in her ear.
She leaned over and spoke into mine.
“Fleet’s been quietly reverse-engineering a lot of different stuff during the years of the cease-fire. I’ve only been involved in some of that. It’s probable they’ve discovered a way to home in on the signals from the Professor’s disc, even if they can’t reverse engineer the disc itself.”
“Please tell me you can switch off whatever it is that’s not been switched off?” I said to the Professor.
“We are now running silent,” he said, not looking at me.
The Professor scooted along, his disc become sluggish—this time not nearly as high off the ground as before, and complaining in an audible fashion.
The dark landscape of the canyon passed by us in a blur. There were no moons. Only stars in the purpled sky. The professor could see though, if one could call his mechanical-cyborg senses sight. What was it like to “look” with Doppler sonar or radar? What images or pictures were in the Professor’s head as he steered us through the canyon?
Suddenly the Professor halted.
A trio of spotlights illuminated us from overhead. The loud purring of VTOL fans told me the gig was up. Those were human machines in the air, not mantis.
I suddenly had the desire to lay on the ground, face-down, and put my hands behind my head.
Busted!
“MANTIS SOLDIER,” a booming human’s voice commanded through an electronic bullhorn, �
�RELEASE YOUR HUMAN PRISONERS OR WE WILL DESTROY YOU.”
Frantic skitter-scratching from the Queen Mother.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be taken,” the Professor translated.
But what could we do? The captain and I both put our hands up to shield our eyes against the harsh light. I felt my heart begin to beat double-time. On the one hand, being discovered by Fleet meant our famished sojourn in the alien wilderness had been cut short. On the other hand, it was probable my friend was going to wind up as an hors d’ oeuvre on some Fleet Intelligence geek’s interrogation menu.
“Ma’am,” I said. “You’d better be damned right about being able to push the POW angle.”
“Set us down, Professor,” she said. “I swear on my honor as a Fleet officer that I won’t let them hurt you, or the Queen Mother.”
There was a moment of agonizing hesitation as the Professor’s head tilted this way and that, his antennae waving frantically as he tried to quickly deduce the best course of action: were there any escape routes, and if escape was impossible, could Adanaho be trusted to fulfill her promise?
The canyon suddenly took on an air of claustrophobia.
Slowly, the disc settled to the ground.
The Queen Mother shoved herself off of the disc and began to skitter away—her stubby lower legs moving rapidly on the rock and sand. The Professor’s mandibles clacked and chattered violently. I guessed that he was yelling at her? But it did no good.
More spotlights appeared, this time from the ground.
Wheeled trucks roared around a bend in the canyon ahead and squads of human troops began to pile out, quickly surrounding us.
The captain and I both stepped off the Professor’s disc, our hands held up.
“I claim these creatures as prisoners of war!” Adanaho shouted at the top of her vocal range. The marines approached us hesitantly, rifles at their shoulders.
“Don’t hurt them,” I yelled. “They’re under our protection.”
One of the marines lowered her rifle and walked out of the pack.
It was difficult to see her rank in the blinding glare of the spotlights, and the blowing dust from the VTOL fans that kept the gunships aloft: three chevrons stacked on top of each other.
“Ma’am,” the female marine said as she approached us, saluting Adanaho. Then she saw me, and added a quick, “Sir.”
The captain and I both reflexively saluted, then dropped our arms.
“Sergeant,” the captain said in a trained tone of authority, “I’m giving you a direct order to stand down. Neither of these mantes are armed. They’re not a threat to you or your marines. As a captain in Fleet Intelligence, I claim them as POWs.”
“Mantis prisoners?” the NCO said, sounding doubtful. She watched as the Queen Mother continued to scramble, and the Professor’s antennae drooped, his body language expressing utter defeat.
“Yes,” Adanaho said. “We took them from the Calysta before she was destroyed. It’s essential that we get these POWs off this planet and into safe keeping. They are vital to the war effort.”
“We’ve got orders to frag every mantis we come across,” said the marine. “No exceptions. Hundreds of lifeboats came down all across this world. It’s been a hell of a job policing up survivors. Especially with so many mantis patrols running interception.”
“Who has orbital space superiority?” the captain asked.
“We do, for the moment,” said the NCO. “But that may not last. There’s no time to waste, ma’am, sir, we have to get you out of here. And I’m not authorized to bring back any mantis carcasses.”
The NCO signaled with a gloved hand and the marines moved in, separating us from the Professor and the Queen Mother—who’d given up escaping, and simply lay prone on the dirt at the Professor’s side, exhausted as well as defeated.
A dozen muzzles were trained on them both, and I distinctly heard safeties clicking off.
“NO!” the captain and I both shouted together. We pushed our way through the marines to stand in front of the Professor and the Queen Mother.
“How much more clearly do I have to give a direct order, Sergeant?” Adanaho commanded sternly. “In fact, if I don’t see people standing down by the time I get to three, there’s going to be hell to pay. One…Two….”
The squad looked confused. Eyes—covered by goggles—darted from Adanaho’s young but determined face, to their squad leader’s. The female NCO looked angry, but she wasn’t about to ignore the captain.
“At ease,” the NCO finally said, slowly pushing a palm down towards the ground. “If she’s Fleet Intel like she says she is, we’ll let her bosses figure it out. Get the heavy-lift transport in here and we’ll evac the lot of them to orbit.”
Several roger thats echoed around the group, then some of the marines trotted back to their trucks while others remained to guard the mantes. The troops stood close enough to keep the mantes under watchful eyes, but not so close as to be within reach of a swiping forelimb. As I watched their young faces I realized that none of them—save for the squad leader herself—were old enough to have fought in the first war. All they’d ever heard about mantes had come to them from training vids.
They stared at the Professor and the Queen Mother the way children might stare at a pair of freshly-landed sharks.
Dangerous monsters.
There was a deafening shriek in the air, and the landscape around us instantly lit as one of the gunships overhead burst into flame.
Other shrieks announced themselves, and suddenly all three of the gunships were coming down in pieces, the wreckage scattering while it burned brightly.
“INCOMING!” the marines yelled collectively.
I scanned the constricted strip of orange-to-purple sky over our heads.
Several swift, lethal-looking shapes swooped over us, their engines sounding distinctly different from those used by humans.
The mantis cavalry had arrived.
Chapter 13
My heart rate went to triple-time.
The war—humans versus the mantes, part two—had suddenly become real again.
The burning remnants of human aircraft lay scattered across the canyon, or steaming in the river itself. Marines were firing their rifles indiscriminately into the air, though I doubt they hit anything. Whatever had attacked and destroyed the gunships was momentarily gone. Though I suspected they would return, probably with drop pods loaded with mantis shock troops. I’d seen such in action on Purgatory. The canyon was about to become a slaughter house.
I saw the Professor with the Queen Mother half aboard his disc. They’d been pushed far out into the river by a trio of marines who were shouting at them, rifles raised and aimed dead-center.
Captain Adanaho was between the marines and the Professor, water up to her waist. She’d pulled out her sidearm and pointed it at the marines.
Humans hurled incomprehensible commands at each other.
One of the rifles went off.
Captain Adanaho was pitched backwards into the water.
Alien jets howled down on us.
The water around the trio of marines suddenly erupted with hundreds of little fountains.
What was left of the trio began to drift down stream.
Not caring whether I was next to be fragged, I plunged into the river and strove mightily to reach the captain. Her body was limply drifting with the current, and the Professor stared dumbly at it as it passed both he and the Queen Mother, who also stared dumbly.
I threw myself forward and began to breast stroke, the water chill and electric on my skin.
My hand finally hit something soft.
I knotted my fist into the fabric of the captain’s uniform and began to beat back towards the shore.
When I came out, my chest heaved for air.
I dragged the captain’s limp body onto the sand at the river’s edge.
Turning her over, I observed the bloody hole in the
front of her uniform. A liver shot? Warm blackness flooded from the wound and the captain’s eyes blinked furiously as she tried to draw breath. Whispered gasps were all she could manage.
“Oh God no,” I said, wishing madly for one of the med kits in our packs. Which were who knew how far away. The current had taken us down river too quickly for me to correctly reckon where camp might be. And there was still shooting happening, though from whom and towards whom I could not be certain. Lacking a better idea, I pressed my hand hard on the wound and willed the bleeding to stop.
The captain groaned loudly and clutched at my arm with both hands. Her eyes were wide and she stared up at me.
“Chief,” she spat. I read her lips more than I heard her.
“Ma’am,” I said, trying to sound calm, “you’re hurt bad, and I have to stop the bleeding.”
“Chief,” she said again, our eyes locked. I quickly lowered my ear to her face. Her voice rasped and sputtered.
“The Queen Mother,” Adanaho said, “you’ve got to protect her. She is the key, Chief. She has been…chosen. Like you. Padre….”
I started to blubber my incomprehension, then looked up to see the Professor hovering almost directly above us. The Queen Mother slid off the front of his disc and came to Adanaho’s side—her forelimbs framed Adanaho’s young face as the captain fought to draw additional breath, but could not.
I pressed harder, to combat the gushing blood, but felt in my heart that it was no use.
“We must flee!” The Professor commanded. “Caught in the crossfire, we will all die.”
“We can’t move the captain!” I hollered, looking up at my friend with a sense of panicked helplessness ripping me up inside.
A trail of bullets spattered across the sand near us.
The Professor spun on his vertical axis to face the four marines who advanced with rifles up. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them splashing through the river shallows. Automatic fire stuttered and suddenly I was flattened across Adanaho’s body as the Professor lowered his disc right down on top of us: me, the captain, and the Queen Mother.
The Chaplain’s Legacy Page 7