Chapter 13
It had been a long time since I’d ridden a shuttle. I forgot they don’t come with gravity. I almost threw up my breakfast when we hit space. I spent the ride—to the awaiting frigate—turning several shades of green. Once onboard the mothercraft I breathed a great breath of relief, then gratefully took a small hand towel from the captain and mopped the perspiration from my face.
The young marines who’d ridden up with us, they seemed to find me funny. Until they saw my expression, and rank. They snapped to as I walked past.
I guess being Chief is good for a few things after all?
The captain—whom I’d learned to address by the last name of Adanaho—gave me twenty minutes to clean up in the frigate’s cramped guest officers’ quarters.
As an enlisted man, I’d only ever gotten bay accommodations. Zero privacy. My little single-man compartment seemed palatial by comparison.
The hair on my cheeks and neck came off, and a fresh undershirt and topcoat came on. Then I used the tiny computer guide in my newly-issued PDA to walk me through the frigate’s innards—to the command deck, where I was to meet Adanaho’s boss.
Sakumora was a short, muscular, stern-faced flag officer who neither smiled nor offered any pleasantries as I entered the room. Two lieutenants attended to his needs, while Captain Adanaho sat at his side, and two marines guarded opposite corners of the space. Against what, I had no idea. But protocol was protocol, and some things never change.
“Sir,” I said, approaching his desk and saluting, “Serg-ahhh, I mean, Chief Warrant Officer Barlow, reporting as ordered.”
“Sit down,” was all he said.
I took a chair which had been offered to me by one of the general’s attaches. For the first time, I noticed the captain’s expression. Her eyes were turned down and staring at the space in front of my knees.
“I’ll get to the point,” said Sakumora gruffly. “We’ve got compelling evidence that the mantes are building strength for a renewed offensive. Everybody knows the generalities of what you did here, on this little dustball of a world. I’ve reviewed the records, your own file, and the reports given to me by my officers who’ve been to Purgatory. There was never any guarantee that the mantes would hold off on their so-called Fourth Expansion indefinitely. I’m afraid time’s up.”
My feet and hands went cold.
So far as I knew, we were as defenseless as ever. The mantes were a much older and technologically superior race. Human ships and weapons amounted to little against mantis shields. For the sake of morale, when the war had been hot, the Fleet hadn’t broadly revealed its numerous and inevitable defeats—human colonies seized by the mantes and cleansed of all “competitive” life. Only after the armistice and the Fleet’s slow return did anyone come clean about the truth.
I cleared my throat.
“What do you expect me to do about it, sir?”
“Do what you did before,” he said matter-of-fact. “Get this collective of…scholars, or whatever they are, to talk to their political leadership. Stage protests. Sit-ins. Anything that can hold the mantes off for a few more years.”
“Assuming I could do it,” I said carefully, “would it make that much of a difference? I don’t think we’re any closer to fending them off than we were before.”
The general looked over to Captain Adanaho. She raised her eyes to me. “Few people have been told this, so I’m ordering you to keep it secret, but we’ve managed to develop a working copy of their shielding technology—what I think you referred to in your notes as The Wall. In the process we think we’ve found a way to penetrate those same shields.”
“Is that so?” I said, startled. “How exactly did we make this extraordinary breakthrough?”
“That’s none of your concern,” the general snapped, “all you’re here to do is get the damned mantes to delay their attack. Until we’re ready.”
“Sir, what makes you think I have any more influence on the mantes than the Fleet’s team of expert diplomats?” I said, throwing my hands out in exasperation. “It’s not like I’m some kind of genius about this stuff. The Professor—the first mantis I dealt with, ten years ago—just happened to reveal certain information that wound up being important. And I had nothing to lose. That my bargain convinced him, and that his compatriots had the leverage and coordination to affect Mantis Quorum policy, were flukes.”
“Nevertheless,” said the general, “you will try.”
“We depart in one hour,” Adanaho said. “You’ll have a few days to prepare, before we meet the mantis delegation.”