The Chaplain's War by Brad R Torgersen

Author:Brad R Torgersen [Torgersen, Brad R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, science fiction, General, Space Opera, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781476736853
Google: EsXooAEACAAJ
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2014-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 33

AFTERNOON BROUGHT US TO THE EDGE OF A NARROW, DEEP canyon. A small river wound its way across the bottom headed northwest to southeast. The water tumbled and rushed against the rocks below, and a rumbling echo drifted out of the canyon as the Professor and I considered our options. I reluctantly woke the captain, helping her down off the back of the Professor’s disc, while he helped the Queen Mother down too. The two aliens spoke briefly in their insect language, then she scurried off to the Canyon’s edge, peering out over it while the captain and I counseled with the Professor.

“Have you detected any further signs of mantis signals or technology?” Adanaho asked. She didn’t sound as stuffed up as she had in the morning, and her eyes looked somewhat better too. I was encouraged by this. Maybe the extra sleep had done her good.

“No,” said the Professor. “But, given our new geographical impediment, I do not think it would matter even if I had.”

“Can’t your disc take us over?” I asked.

“The carriage is not an aircraft,” the Professor said. “Its impellers operate according to proximity with solid and semi-solid mass, not gravity per se. I would sink like a stone until I’d reached a point within a few of your meters above the canyon floor.”

“If we can find a way down,” I said, “maybe we can rig up a method of traveling on the river current. Plus, we’d have fresh water any time we wanted it. I bet that flood creek we filled our canteens in is a tributary to this drainage. If we follow it far enough, we might reach a lake or something larger. What’s your hunch, Professor? Would your people prefer such a location for setting up a temporary base of operations?”

“I believe that is a logical assumption,” said the Professor.

“How about it, ma’am?” I asked, looking at my superior.

“It’s as good a plan as any we’ve had so far,” she said. “We’ll have to make sure and get the Queen Mother’s opin—OH MY GOD!”

I froze, watching the captain’s arm shoot out with an index finger pointed behind me to the canyon’s edge.

I turned just in time to see the Queen Mother’s body drop over the side. The Professor nearly bowled me over as his disc shot after her, then he too was over the side. The captain and I rushed to the edge and flopped onto our bellies, sliding across the last few inches of sand before putting our chins at the lip, hands clawed across the precipice.

What we saw was the most improbably beautiful thing I’d witnessed since going to space with the Fleet as an older teenager.

The Queen Mother circled lazily around and around in the air, slowly spiraling with her wings spread to their maximum width, each beating in concert with the others, and together making a low rhythm that sounded not too dissimilar from a helicopter. She obviously weighed too much and her wings were too small for

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