Adanaho raised an eyebrow.
“Believe me, Chief,” she said, “I didn’t intend for any of this to happen, either. Nobody wanted a war.”
“But the Fleet bosses were obviously prepared for it,” I snapped.
“And why not?” she said. “your own records from the original armistice state the matter plainly—the Fourth Expansion would have wiped humanity from the face of the galaxy. We were up against the wall, one way or another. It would have been foolish to count on the cease-fire to last indefinitely. Even though you and the Professor had managed to achieve some measure of mutual understanding.”
A digital chime suddenly sounded through the speakers in the lifeboat.
Adanaho got up and checked the lifeboat’s computer.
“Our emergency beacon’s been spotted,” she said. “We’re getting telemetry from a Fleet rescue team in orbit. Looks like they’ll be here in a few hours, once they’ve picked up other survivors.”
“Do they know we have the Queen Mother with us?” I said, alarmed.
“If they knew,” the captain said, “we’d be their topmost priority. That we’re not tells me they think we’re just another lifeboat filled with survivors—one of many, from the looks of it.”
I would have been lying if I didn’t feel some degree of satisfaction in that news. A human rescue team meant that not only were we holding our own against the mantes, we were doing well enough to be able to afford search missions for the retrieval of survivors from lost ships. Not exactly the actions of an overwhelmed and beaten species.
The Professor shrank in on himself, just as he had while aboard the Calysta.
“Prisoners of war,” he said. And none too happily.
“It could be worse,” I said to my old friend. “I survived the experience for years. You will too, if Captain Adanaho is right about being able to secure your POW status under Fleet protocol.”
He chitter-scratched with the Queen Mother, whose deflated body language grew even more so.
“Of course,” I said, thinking pessimistically, “if the captain can’t secure your status as POWs, then you’re meat—subject to the total spectrum of our interrogation techniques.”
Adanaho didn’t meet my gaze as I looked at her.
I snapped my fingers, then turned to face the Professor.
“Tell the Queen Mother that if she can promise us safety among the mantes, we’ll help her escape.”
Adanaho opened her mouth to object, but I held up a hand, not wanting to get into an argument with my superior—at least not yet.
“Impossible,” said the Professor. “With her carriage nonfunctional the Queen Mother is trapped here.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “There’s no contingency mode?”
The Professor hesitated, then he and the Queen Mother conversed for several minutes, their heads shifting back and forth and their mandibles rattling, clacking, snapping and stuttering. If Adanaho picked up on the fact that the Professor was straining to remain respectively persistent, she didn’t show it. But I could see what he was trying to do. Doubtless, like me, he was required to display deference to a superior, lest he forfeit his position. Or worse. But in the Queen Mother’s current state, she was dependent on him totally. And might be forced to acquiesce to whatever he suggested.
“The carriage’s engineering has changed little in hundreds of your years,” the Professor said. “It is one of the all-time outstanding technical achievements of the great forbearers of mantis civilization—the first ones to meld mantis biology with mantis cyber-technology. There is an emergency release procedure, though it is seldom used. And I have never seen it done.”
“Good,” I said. “The sooner she’s out of that thing, the sooner we can get moving. No doubt your own carriage has been sending out coded mantis distress signals, ever since we landed.”
“You guess correctly,” the Professor said.
“Then it’s a race against time—the further we are from humans, the safer we’ll be. We’ll have to hope that your people have started dispatching rescue missions of their own.”
“But where will we go?” the Professor asked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said, raising my arms out and indicating the walls of the lifeboat with my open palms.
“Very well,” said the Professor. “But you and the female must wait outside. The extraction from the carriage will be even more humiliating for the Queen Mother than remaining bound to it. This is not a thing for human eyes to see. Gather your human survival equipment and supplies and be gone. We will come out in time.”
The captain and I quietly collected what we could, slung the frames of the emergency packs on our backs, and climbed out of the lifeboat and walked up to the top of the bluff, pebbles and sand swamping over the tops of our boots with each step.
“You realize I could order us all to stay put,” she said, her short-cropped hair ruffling slightly in the cool, dry breeze. The sun—a star smaller and yet brighter than that which Purgatory circled—was still high up in the sky, but sinking almost imperceptibly towards the horizon.
“Ma’am,” I said, “if you meant it when you told me you didn’t want a war, then there’s no way you can turn these two over to Fleet in their present circumstances. We might as well stuff apples in their mouths and shove them into the oven. They’ll be picked apart like frogs in a biology class. First their minds, then their bodies.”
“Are you forgetting that you have a duty, Chief?” she said sternly, turning to face me fully, with hands clutching the straps of her pack, elbows thrust just slightly out.
Our uniforms were barely keeping the cold at bay, and I suspected we’d have to use the emergency jackets in our packs if we didn’t start hiking soon.
“What good’s that duty going to do if we still lose? C’mon, Captain, you know the odds. The mantes own thousands of planets, and even with the years of the armistice taken into consideration, I can’t believe humanity has caught up much. Have those colonies crucified in the first war even fully recovered yet? What about Earth? No, ma’am, if the mantes want us dead, it will happen eventually. The only difference now is we can actually put up a fight, whereas last time they cut us down like lambs.”
My superior officer didn’t appear convinced.
“When you got deployed against Purgatory, you lost,”Adanaho said. “No doubt that’s left a big, wide scar on your faith in the ability of the Fleet to effectively prosecute a war, or erect an effective defense. Believe me when I tell you, we’ve come a long way since you were taken prisoner. You talk as if we’ve already lost, when the fact is, we’ve got a new roll of the dice, Chief. A new chance to prevail.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it. Maybe she was right. I’d spent so long living under mantis rule, maybe I’d unconsciously absorbed the idea that once beaten, humanity would always be beaten.
Still, the fresh fighting seemed atrociously unnecessary. Not when there were people like the Professor who could call on the better angels of mantis nature. Especially if the Queen Mother could be made to serve as the Professor’s surrogate in this regard. Otherwise, even if humanity did stand a better chance, was the ensuing bloodshed worth our pride in the matter? How many worlds might be gained or lost for the sake of ego?
I breathed deeply, collected my thoughts, and spoke again.
“Look, I’ve never been a great one for protocol and going along with orders at all costs. In some ways, the absence of Fleet rules and regulations from Purgatory life was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it made me realize what kind of man I am. I’m not a very good soldier. I don’t like being told what to do. And if I’d had a choice in the matter I’d have thrown my nonstandard commission back in Fleet’s face.
“Chaplain Thomas gave me a job once, and I did all I could to carry it out. For his sake. Now I have a new job, and until that job’s been done—the resumption of peace between the mantes race and our own—I won’t rest.”
The c
aptain considered at great length, her eyes evaluating my expression while her mind evaluated the wisdom of my plea. It hadn’t been a very persuasive one, but it was the only one I had to make. Either she went with it, or I’d be forced to mutiny. Definitely not something I’d prefer doing. But I’d do it just the same. And I think she knew it too.
Adanaho drew in a long, gradual breath through her nostrils, then let it out just as gradually, tilting her head to one side.
“You’re right,” she said. “You’re not a very good soldier. You’ve been two steps from dereliction ever since I met you. But you’ve got guts, padre. And I respect that. Okay, just so things are official, I am ordering us to escort the Professor and the Queen Mother until we can make contact with mantis forces, at which time we will parlay for a cease-fire, and pray that things get rolling positively from there.”
“And if the Fleet finds us before the mantes do?”
“Then let me do the talking, while you do the praying.”
There was a noise behind us. We turned to see the Professor slowly levitating upward, out of the lifeboat’s hatch. He had the Queen Mother balanced on the front of his disc—his forelimbs wrapped under her insect-like shoulder joints while the rest of her body rested on the front of the disc proper. Her lower thorax was pale and shone with dampness, its chitin looking soft, and mantis blood trailing from several holes.
Adanaho and I rushed over to them.
“Does she need first aid?” I asked.
“What can be done, I have done,” said the Professor, who seemed visibly shaken by what had just transpired inside. “She will heal. In time. The Queen Mother is severed from her carriage, and I do not know if she can ever be mated to another—such things being almost unheard of among adults of her great age. Her pain is terrible, but she is conscious, and she bade me tell you that we are in your care now. I have no weapons—as you well know—and would not use them to coerce you, even if I did. The Queen Mother rides with me, and I will follow wherever you choose to go. I can signal for mantis help with my own carriage—for several of your months, depending on how long my carriage’s fuel cells last.”
“May fortune favor the foolish,” I said.
The Professor’s antennae made a questioning expression.
“Old Earth literature,” the captain said, in reply. “Come on, let’s go. Padre? Since this is your idea, you’re on point.”
“Roger that, ma’am,” I said, tugging down on the straps of my pack to tighten them into my shoulders.
Chapter 22
Earth, 2153 A.D.
The first day of actual Induction Service Training turned out to be little different from the first day of Reception. Screaming and profanity from the drill sergeants was had by the bucketful. Everyone’s carefully packed duffels were upended and dumped onto the cement—despite the fact that virtually everything that could be taken as contraband had already been taken. Each recruit was personally insulted, demeaned, or otherwise cut down by a sprinkler system of sarcastic comments, and there was far too little time given in which to get far too many things done, which resulted in a lot of smoking, which resulted in some very tired recruits at the end of the night.
I lay in my new bunk—identical to the old one, save for the fact that I was on the bottom now, and not the top—and stared into the relative dark. Gentle snoring around the bay—which was also identical to the one which I’d just departed, save for the new motivational mosaic in the Dead Zone—told me that I ought to be asleep. Only, I couldn’t. My body was hurting, my mind was hurting, and I couldn’t relax enough to drift off. Because not only had Batbayar Thukhan been assigned to the same IST company as me, he’d even wound up in the same platoon.
I turned on my side and stared down the rows of bunks to where I knew Thukhan was. The dim glow from the emergency exit sign illuminated my enemy’s face just enough for me to see that he was staring right back at me. I quickly flipped over to the other side, and shivered. We’d barely interacted with one another since that initial showdown in Reception, but I had a sure feeling that Thukhan was always watching me. Closely. The glance across the bay seemed to confirm that. It made me nervous, though I couldn’t be sure why. I’d been fairly sure at the time of the initial showdown that Batbayar was a talker, not a fighter. But the way in which the man had switched from hot to cold—like a machine—left me particularly unsettled.
And now we’d be dealing with each other for fourteen Earth weeks.
Whether I liked it or not.
Morning wakeup was the usual shuffle for sinks and toilets, and since only a handful of the men in the male bay knew each other from their first bay in reception, people had to work out a system all over again. Which didn’t always go smoothly. There was bumping and jostling and a few harsh words between particularly stubborn recruits. But with so little time, nobody could spare more than a curse and a hard glance, before moving on to the next hurried task.
We missed the time hack for accountability, of course.
Three men were still in the head when the drill sergeants—a PT-uniformed trio composed of two males and one female—popped on the lights.
Those of us who’d managed to toe the line around the Dead Zone groaned audibly as one of the drill sergeants—the woman, named Schmetkin—looked at her chronometer and began to tsk-tsk-tsk in a tell-tale way that made it clear we were all in for some early-morning hurt. I was just glad we were already in our PT uniforms, because the sweat we worked out in the bay would simply be added to the sweat we worked out on the PT field.
By the time the three offending recruits had rushed to their lockers, thrown their hygiene supplies into drawers and slammed their lockers closed, the drill sergeants were smiling evilly.
“Don’t hurry on our account,” said one of the male drill sergeants—a black-skinned sergeant named Davis.
“They’re on their own schedule,” said Drill Sergeant Malvino, the only staff sergeant of the three. “Looks like we’re gonna get the PT started a little early today.”
Myself and the other males spent ten minutes on our backs and faces, alternating between push-ups and flutter kicks. By the time we’d actually collected our rolled foam PT mats and were shuffling down the stairs to the open-air expanse of concrete beneath the bay, half the male recruits’ PT tops had been soaked dark with perspiration.
Waiting on the concrete—and also showing signs of having had some early PT of their own—were the rest of Charlie Company. Already lined up, according to platoon. All of us from my bay broke off and ran to our respective platoons and squads. For me, that meant second squad of second platoon, or 2/2. Thukhan was in fourth squad of second platoon—known as 4/2—and I could feel Thukhan’s eyes on me as I fell in at the position of parade rest, feet shoulder-width apart, eyes forward, hands overlapped at the small of my back.
Drill Sergeant Malvino—the nominal senior drill sergeant for second—took his place at the center head position, facing the recruits. His face was blank while his head slowly turned back and forth, eyes swiveling. Me and the others had learned previously that any movement on our part—even accidental—would earn us a huge ass-chewing from the drill sergeants, so we remained as still as we could, our rolled PT mats aligned uniformly next to our right legs.
Behind second platoon was fourth, and behind fourth was sixth, and to the left were first, third and fifth platoons, respectively.
Together we made up Charlie Company, Four-Fourteenth IST Battalion.
The double doors in the brick wall in front of Charlie Company’s common area slammed open, and Charlie’s first sergeant stalked out. Her name tape read CHAU, and she was all of five feet tall, and looked like she could bench-press a grown man. Her brownish hair was shaved close to the head and hidden beneath her soft cap—she did not wear a black campaign hat like the drill sergeants—and her face seemed permanently frozen in a sour scowl.
All six platoons’ posted DSes spun smoothly on their heels to face the Top, while the remaining DSes f
ell into a line at the back of the company.
“Companeeeee,” Chau yelled in a piercing soprano, failing to draw out the ayyy sound as had been the custom of the first sergeant from Reception.
Each of the six posted DSes went to the position of attention and swiveled their heads to the right, shouting, “Platoon!”
Chau finished: “Ahh-ten-SHIN!”
All six platoons—composed of roughly two hundred recruits—went rigid.
“Drill sah-jeens,” Chau barked in an accent I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard before, “take accountability of your platoons and prepare to deliver report!”
Malvino spun back around and, head turned towards the rightmost man in first squad, ordered, “Report.”
Each of second platoon’s squads had been given a squad leader the day before, and each of those squad leaders had supposedly been instructed during Reception on how to take accountability—before it came time to report to the platoon sergeant. First squad’s squad leader suddenly blushed and leaned his head forward, looking to his left so that he could see down the rank. His mouth moved silently as he counted, and Malvino’s face darkened with frustration.
“First Squad Leader,” Malvino said angrily, “do you have accountability of your squad or not?”
“Hold on a sec—” first squad’s squad leader began.
“Shut up,” Malvino said. “First Squad Leader, front-leaning rest. Second Squad Leader, report!”
When the second squad leader failed to promptly give accountability, she was in the front-leaning rest.
Swiveling my eyes, I could see peripherally that a similar scenario was being played out across the common area, with multiple recruits going down to their hands and their toes.
Second’s fourth squad leader had fair warning, so he got it right. But that left the squad leaders for first, second, and third on the cement, with Malvino looking like he was going to explode.
The tirade from Malvino began.
“First of all, this is not gawtdamned lollygagging Reception anymore, Recruits. You should know this already. We shouldn’t have to be reminding you of how this works. We have more important things to do than to dick around with you at morning formation, to say nothing of getting your stupid asses out of the head on time to toe the line up in those bays. It’s a bad start to the day, recruits. A very bad start. I’m already in a very bad mood, and it’s not even breakfast yet. In IST we hit the ground running every single gawtdamned day. No excuses. No time to relax. You get up out of that bunk and you vacate your bowels, scrub your grills, scrape your necks and your pink little cheeks, and you report on-time and ready to train. We’re already well behind schedule, and do you know what that means? Less time for you. Less time for hygiene after PT, less time to take care of all the little crap I know you didn’t take care of before the lights went on.”
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