The Chaplain's War - eARC Read online

  But the uniforms did look good, I had to admit. The Garrison and Field Fatigue, which everyone came to know as the GFF, was a wash-and-wear synthetic fiber outfit identical to that which we’d seen on the first sergeant and the other NCOs we’d encountered that day. Pants, topcoats, boots, even the undershirt and underpants—granny panties, one female recruit groused—fit nicely, per the computerized sizer’s instructions, as relayed to the automated tailor that had lived behind the walls of the hallway.

  With duffels over shoulders, we recruits were hustled into platoon formation, four ranks of ten each, then filed out of the room and directed up several flights of stairs to the barracks level.

  The walls were brick, and covered in a thick layer of slate-gray semi-gloss paint. The floor was covered in brightly-shining institutional tile—white, with little speckles in it—and at the edges there was black rubber molding. The whole place stank of disinfectant, mixed with an artificial pine aroma; both of which might have been better suited to a pet morgue than any place humans might want to inhabit. These smells grew especially intense any time I walked past the door to a bathroom—what the NCOs kept referring to as the head.

  Corporals with e-pads and barcode readers came around and began directing males to their bays, and females to their bays. When I got to my designated bay—essentially a large, open room with bunk beds and lockers around the perimeter—I was surprised to see other recruits already there.

  When one of the corporals noticed the questioning expression on my face, the corporal said, “Barlow, you’re with holdovers.”

  “Corporal, what’s a holdover, Corporal?”

  “People who didn’t ship during last Pickup Day. Various problems.”

  I looked at the holdovers, who were all doing their best to ignore the new bodies trudging in, and I felt my stomach turn over.

  Bunks and lockers were divided up by name, and I got stuck sharing with one of the holdovers, who didn’t so much as say hello to me as I grunted and shoved my duffel up onto the top bunk, and waited for the corporal to come around and give further instructions.

  “You new people,” said the corporal, “need to understand that even though this is temporary lodging, you’re expected to keep it as immaculate as it is now. Cleaning and watch duty rosters will be made up before the end of the day, and everyone will be instructed on how to make and keep their bunk, their locker, and their common area. Much of that’s going to be a team effort. I feel compelled to remind you that arguing and fighting is only going to get everyone in trouble. Work well as a team, and the next few days will go smoothly. Work badly as a team…Well, we’ll just have to find a way to fix it.”

  The holdovers snickered among themselves, and I had a suspicious feeling about the hidden meaning behind the word fix.

  “Recruit Thukhan,” said the corporal to the holdover that was bunked with me, “is the Bay Sergeant. You go through him before you go through me or any of the other NCOs. Chain of command is very important. If you come to me or another NCO and we find out you didn’t go through Thukhan first, you’re wrong. And we will make that point abundantly clear. Understood?”

  As a bay, “YES CORPORAL!”

  “Thukhan, you know the drill. Help these new recruits get unpacked, draw linen, and fill their names in for duties.”

  “Corporal, yes, Corporal,” said Thukhan.

  “Any questions?”

  When nobody raised a hand, the corporal pivoted on a heel and walked out of the bay, leaving myself and the new recruit males to mill about and begin talking to each other for the first time since we’d gotten off the busses in the dark at three in the morning. I felt my stomach growl, and wondered why at this time of the day we’d not had lunch.

  I turned to the Thukhan to ask about it.

  “They don’t feed you the first 24 hours,” Thukhan said. “There’s more medical stuff tomorrow and they want you to fast before they draw blood. Don’t worry, you won’t be doing any PT until the third day here.”

  “What’s PT?”

  “Physical fitness. Ass on the grass.”

  “Oh.”

  I waited for Thukhan to say something else, but Thukhan just turned away and went to the back of the bay where the other holdovers were occupying several bottom bunks and conversing amongst themselves. I waited for a few moments, looking around the bay, and went to my locker. Opening it, I found a top shelf, a bar for hangers, and a cabinet with three drawers, all empty. It seemed like a waste to have to unpack and arranged everything when we were just going to have to repack and carry everything off again the following week, but the rules were the rules, and I went hesitantly to speak to the holdovers while the other new recruits broke off into pairs or trios, sitting on the bottom bunks and gabbing about everything which had happened to them up to that point.

  “What do you want, Barlow?” said one of the holdovers, a pug-faced little man whose name tape read GORANA.

  “Corporal says we should unpack and get bedding and stuff, and Thukhan is supposed to help us with that.”

  Gorana sniffed and pointed at me ironically. “Newbie.”

  The Holdovers laughed, and I felt my cheeks begin to burn. Angry—but determined to not make a fight about it—I turned to Thukhan, who still acted as if I wasn’t worth noticing.

  “Where do we go to get blankets?”

  “I’ll show you when I’m ready, Barlow. Shit, you’ve got all effing day to take care of things. Just relax and don’t worry about it.”

  I looked back at the room full of men—boys, mostly, and all of us entirely too eager to kick back—and decided I needed to press my case.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea if we wait. What if the corporal comes back and finds us all just sitting around like this. Won’t he be pissed?”

  “So what if he is?” Gorana snorted. “Limp-dicked little effer isn’t my problem. I’m out of here in thirty days, and I’m not lifting a finger for any of you chumps.”

  Laughter from all of the holdovers.

  I turned my attention strictly on Thukhan.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  The bay sergeant sighed. “You already are. Too much, in fact. What now?”

  “I mean privately, please.”

  Gorana and a couple of others snickered loudly, and seemed to think that I made for great comedy. When I didn’t sulk away as expected, Thukhan stood up irritably and stalked towards the back of the bay. “In my office, Barlow!”

  I followed, walking through a swinging door into what was, apparently, the bay’s head.

  Thukhan spun and faced me, arms crossed over chest.

  “What is it?”

  “First of all, I’m Harry,” I said, holding out my hand.

  The bay sergeant looked at my hand, and didn’t respond for several tell-tale moments. Then he reluctantly put out his own hand and, dead-fishing me, and said, “Batbayar.”

  “Batbayar. That’s…Mongolian?”

  “Can we just cut the crap, Barlow? In case you haven’t noticed, none of us holdovers is particularly thrilled to be here. Maybe you’re still feeling all special about yourself for having volunteered, but for some of us it’s either this, or prison. Think I’m happy to be here instead of jail? No, I’m not. This is just jail of another sort. You’re new so you don’t know what it’s like, but you’ll learn. So go back to your bunk and lay down and chill until I’m ready. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Good. Now stop bothering me,”

  Thukhan turned and walked out of the head before I could get in another word.

  Chapter 17

  We met the mantes in orbit around a nameless terrestrial planet, far from the boundaries of human space. The mantis ships were shaped like mammoth footballs, their surfaces studded with sensors and weaponry. I watched the alien vessels through the portholes of the Fleet frigate, Calysta. We’d brought some big stuff too. Opposite the cluster of mantes vessels—across the black expanse of
space—was a squadron of Earth dreadnoughts unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Not that size and armament would do a lick of good if those new ships couldn’t break through the mantis shields, as Adanaho had suggested. Hopefully we wouldn’t have to find out, though I still wasn’t sure anything I did or said could make a difference otherwise.

  I looked over to Captain Adanaho, who had followed me to the observation deck.

  “Fifteen minutes,” she said.

  “That means the general wants us there in five,” I said.

  She smirked at me.

  “Always arrive ten minutes before you’ve been told,” I said with a slight smile, “and then it’s hurry-up-and-wait.”

  “The years on Purgatory haven’t completely dulled your memory,” she said. “Though it’s obvious you’re not happy about your current position.”

  I looked down at my uniform.

  “No, ma’am, not really. I was nineteen when I signed up. The Fleet tried to take Purgatory a couple of years later, and then I spent the rest of my time either as a prisoner, or trying to follow through on a promise I made to my old boss before he died.”

  “It must have been an important promise,” she said.

  “I thought so,” I said.

  “But didn’t you consider that promise fulfilled, once the armistice was reached?”

  “Not really, because by then the Professor and his school kids were showing up all the time. Plus, I had more human customers coming in the door than I’d ever had before. People seemed to think the chapel was special. Significant. It grew to be a landmark in the valley. Somebody had to stick around and sweep up. And it’s not like I had anything more important to do. Maybe if the Fleet had returned right away, I’d have jumped at a chance to go home. But when a couple of years went by and it was obvious that Fleet wasn’t coming back to Purgatory any time soon, I decided to make my plans for the chapel into long-term plans.”

  “And yet our research shows that you don’t hold services there,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Like I said, I’m not a chaplain. I’m just the assistant. This little silver bar you guys put on my collar, it doesn’t make me a chaplain either.”

  “Would you like to be?”

  I thought about it, still looking outside into deep space. Something I had not seen in many years.

  “No,” I said, slipping my hands into my pants pockets. Like having facial hair, hands in pockets was also against regulation. But screw it, certain rules are made to be broken.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I’m not a preacher,” I admitted. “I’m also not a theologian.”

  “So why even become an assistant? Of all the jobs in the Fleet available to you?”

  “Seemed like the best fit,” I said. “I’m not a tactical guy, and I’m not that great with equipment either. But people? I like people. When hostilities with the mantes broke out, some of my friends signed up immediately. I kind of went along for the ride. It was a chance to go to space. What kid doesn’t dream about that? But I didn’t want to kill stuff nor fix stuff nor do a lot of the other work on the list the recruiter showed me.”

  She shook her head.

  “And yet you were the one who managed to use the single piece of leverage we needed to stop the mantes.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “dumb luck, that.”

  She checked her watch.

  “Well, it’s time to see if you can’t scare up a little more, padre.”

  We walked from the porthole to the nearest lift car, went down three decks, and wound our way to the frigate’s largish main conference room. Marines in freshly-pressed uniforms guarded the hatches, with rifles at port arms. There were some mantes guards as well, their lower thoraxes submerged into the biomechanical “saddles” of their hovering, saucer-shaped discs.

  Every mantis I’d ever seen was technically a cyborg. Their upper halves were insectoid—complete with bug eyes, fearsome beaks, antennae, wings, and serrated-chitin forelimbs. Their lower halves were integrated into their mobile, floating saucers. It was the saucers—the computers and equipment in them—which allowed the mantes to speak to humans, and have our own speech translated back into their language, among many other things.

  The mantes guards all raised forelimbs in my direction as we approached, though they seemed to be ignoring the captain.

  I blushed in spite of myself, and raised a hand in return.

  Was I that well known among the aliens?

  We entered the conference room, and I stopped short.

  There was the Professor—whom I considered a friend, and whom I’d not seen in a long time—and a larger, much older-looking mantis on whom all human eyes were focused.

  The human contingent was arrayed around a half-moon table with chairs and computers and various recording devices.

  The two mantes merely floated in the air, about waist high.

  I smiled, and in spite of protocol, walked quickly up to the Professor.

  “Hello,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to see you again.”

  “You would have not, Harry,” said the Professor, “had circumstances evolved differently.”

  If the Professor had a name, it was unpronounceable for humans. The skitter-scratch mandible-against-mandible language of the aliens was incomprehensible for us. And he’d always been addressed by title, even though he’d asked permission to be on a first-name basis with me.

  A familiar throat was cleared to my rear.

  I turned to Adanaho, who’s expression told me I was erring without knowing it. Behind her sat the general—staring hard.

  “Sorry sir,” I said, then nodded knowingly to the Professor, and walked quickly to a seat that was offered to me. The captain sat down at my side, and after the general gave me one last lingering look, he ordered the doors closed, leaving us alone with our guests.

  I checked my PDA. The captain and I were as early as we’d planned to be. Yet it appeared things were already well in motion.

  Not good.

  “Well,” the general said, “he’s here now. Since nothing I or my staff say seems to be worth anything to you, maybe you’ll listen to him.”

  The old mantis behind the Professor floated forward.

  “Padre,” it said to me, its vocoded speaker-box voice coming from the grill on the front of its disc. The creature’s beak did not move. The translator was tied directly into the mantis’s nervous system.

  “That is what some call me,” I said. “May I ask who you are?”

  “This is the Queen Mother,” said the Professor, his manner deferential as he introduced her. “She is the highest of the Select who rule our people. Her voice carries supreme authority within the Quorum of the Select.”

  “She is your sovereign,” I said.

  “Yes and no,” said the Professor. “She is elected, but she also shares a tremendous lineage, biologically. Her genetics run through countless mantes, over many of your generations.”

  In other words, she was fecund, in addition to being old.

  I sat up a little straighter.

  “Ma’am,” I said to the Queen Mother, “of what service can I be to you?”

  The Queen Mother floated forward a bit more, while the Professor floated back.

  “Your name is spoken in my Quorum,” she said. “It is the only human name that has ever reached such height. When the one you call the Professor first came before me, many of our cycles ago, and petitioned for us to halt our Fourth Expansion, I considered him obtuse. Your superstition is of no consequence to me, nor do I have any use for it. And yet, the Professor had convinced a good many of his contemporaries that the elimination of your species—of your numerous modes of religion—would be detrimental to the advancement of mantis knowledge. And his colleagues had convinced many on the Quorum. Rather than force a contentious vote on the issue, I acquiesced, believing that the merit of the Professor’s proposed observation and research would become obvious in time. Even if I could see
no value in it in the moment.”

  She let a tiny silence hang in the air.

  “I no longer feel the need for such forbearance.”

  The room was dead silent, but the Queen Mother’s words had hit me like a thunderclap. It was one thing to hear the captain talk about a possible end to the peace. It was quite another to have the nominal leader of the enemy in front of me declaring that she was going to drop the hammer. I felt a slithering surety in my heart: the Queen Mother would not bluff.

  I cleared my throat experimentally, trying to shake off the dread I felt. The eyes of the officers behind me began to drill virtual holes in my back as I left my seat. The Queen Mother remained where she was.

  “I have to think,” I said, voice shaking just a bit, “that your mind isn’t entirely made up. Otherwise why agree to this meeting at all? You could just as easily declare the cease-fire dead, launch your war armada, and have done with it.”

  “There are still some,” she said, her triangular insect’s head tilting back in the Professor’s direction, “who petition me for further amity. I am not a hasty being. I listen to my intellectuals. If they say there is additional merit in long-term conciliation between our races, I am habitually obliged to entertain the notion—whether I agree with it or not. So rather than send a delegate, I came here myself. To meet the one human who has managed to alter the inevitable course of my empire. I had expected someone more impressive.”

  “My apologies,” I said, “if my presence does not meet that expectation. As for what I can say or do to change your mind, I am not sure I can offer you much more than what I’ve already been able to offer to the Professor and his students. I am the chaplain’s assistant. I’ve counseled the Professor that he’d do well to seek out a bona fide chaplain. Or, if a military man is not in order, then there are the finest theologians, scholars, religious teachers, and clergymen Earth has to offer. If I have failed to provide enlightenment, surely someone else might be better suited.”

  “Enlightenment,” the Queen Mother said, her mouth hinged open and her serrated, vicious teeth vibrating—the mantis display of annoyance. “This is a phrase that I find utterly preposterous. I have studied what little of your planet’s history is available to me and determined that we mantes were building starships when humans were still scuttling about in caves. Enlightenment. Ridiculous. Does the larva enlighten the adult?”