The Chaplain’s Legacy Read Free

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 at 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 me 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