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Authors: Brad R. Torgersen
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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.”
CHAPTER 14
Earth, 2153 A.D.
THEY CALLED IT RECEPTION.
As if I’d been invited to something you do after a wedding.
Only there was no cake.
And certainly no ice cream.
Sweat gradually trickled down into the small of my back, underneath my t-shirt. My arms and shoulders were on fire from being made to hold both of my stuffed-to-the-gills travel bags, while myself and five hundred other Fleet recruits stood at the position of attention outside the main processing hall of Armstrong Field.
If there was a hottest, most-humid, least-agreeable spot in North America, Armstrong Field seemed to have been built right in the middle of it. Sol’s yellow-white rays quietly baked the acres of concrete in front of the hall, and I had to grit my teeth against the heat on my brow and the agony of having stood completely still—in the exact same place—for what had seemed like thirty pointless minutes.
People patrolled the edges of the formation—each wearing green and brown pixelated camouflage uniforms and high-topped simulated brown leather boots. They answered to names like Corporal and Sergeant and they screamed at anyone who dared to address them in any other way. Literally screamed. Loud enough I was sure none of them would have a working larynx at the end of the day.
The victims—all of us gathered from across the globe—had all been rooted to the spot, immediately following our disembarkation from a flotilla of buses which had come from Armstrong’s busy aerospace field.
There had been no warning. One moment we’d all been on the buses, chattering and grab-assing, the next we’d been herded off and funneled into one of several gauntlets of very angry Fleet soldiers—men and women who seemed to have raised cursing to a high art. Men and women who looked as if they might literally burn a person to the ground, just from the raw hate in their steely eyes.
We recruits were demeaned, hollered at, cuffed, slapped, and even punched until everyone was arrayed in a huge rectangle, one hundred columns wide and five rows deep. We were not allowed to drop our bags. Anyone unfortunate enough to drop his or her bags—or anything else on his or her person—was promptly surrounded by several blister-tongued Fleet soldiers who verbally pummeled the perpetrator until he or she had secured his or her things, and returned to the proper state of being scared shitless.
For the first time, I wondered if I’d made a very serious mistake.
One of the main doors to the hall popped open, and a
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.”
CHAPTER 14
Earth, 2153 A.D.
THEY CALLED IT RECEPTION.
As if I’d been invited to something you do after a wedding.
Only there was no cake.
And certainly no ice cream.
Sweat gradually trickled down into the small of my back, underneath my t-shirt. My arms and shoulders were on fire from being made to hold both of my stuffed-to-the-gills travel bags, while myself and five hundred other Fleet recruits stood at the position of attention outside the main processing hall of Armstrong Field.
If there was a hottest, most-humid, least-agreeable spot in North America, Armstrong Field seemed to have been built right in the middle of it. Sol’s yellow-white rays quietly baked the acres of concrete in front of the hall, and I had to grit my teeth against the heat on my brow and the agony of having stood completely still—in the exact same place—for what had seemed like thirty pointless minutes.
People patrolled the edges of the formation—each wearing green and brown pixelated camouflage uniforms and high-topped simulated brown leather boots. They answered to names like Corporal and Sergeant and they screamed at anyone who dared to address them in any other way. Literally screamed. Loud enough I was sure none of them would have a working larynx at the end of the day.
The victims—all of us gathered from across the globe—had all been rooted to the spot, immediately following our disembarkation from a flotilla of buses which had come from Armstrong’s busy aerospace field.
There had been no warning. One moment we’d all been on the buses, chattering and grab-assing, the next we’d been herded off and funneled into one of several gauntlets of very angry Fleet soldiers—men and women who seemed to have raised cursing to a high art. Men and women who looked as if they might literally burn a person to the ground, just from the raw hate in their steely eyes.
We recruits were demeaned, hollered at, cuffed, slapped, and even punched until everyone was arrayed in a huge rectangle, one hundred columns wide and five rows deep. We were not allowed to drop our bags. Anyone unfortunate enough to drop his or her bags—or anything else on his or her person—was promptly surrounded by several blister-tongued Fleet soldiers who verbally pummeled the perpetrator until he or she had secured his or her things, and returned to the proper state of being scared shitless.
For the first time, I wondered if I’d made a very serious mistake.
One of the main doors to the hall popped open, and a
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