Steven Kent - The Clone Redemption

Once we boarded the barges, it was a question of knocking out security inside the barges. Like I said, that was the easy part. Flying the ships out might be a different question entirely.

I said, “The Unifieds won’t be expecting us. That should buy us a little time.

“If we broadcast in here,” I said, pointing at the side of Mars that pointed away from Earth, “we can use the planet to hide our anomaly from Earth. Assuming no one is out sightseeing on the far side of Mars, we should go unnoticed.

“If everything goes right, and they don’t spot the anomaly …” I paused, superstitiously believing that I had just jinxed myself. “If everything went right …” Everything never went right. “Assuming they don’t spot the anomaly, we should be able to approach the barges without being seen.” I traced a line around the planet.

“They’ll pick up your cruiser when you launch your transports,” said Jolly. “You can’t launch without lowering shields, and the transports won’t be cloaked.”

He was right, and I admitted as much. I said, “Yeah, but by then it should be too late. If we maneuver the spy ship in close enough, we should have crews aboard every barge in three minutes.”

As long as the Unifieds did not catch us broadcasting in, we’d be able to slide right up to the barges.

Jolly held up a pudgy hand to stop me. He said, “General, even if you reach the barges, how will you get them out without a broadcast station?”

Our broadcast network extended only to the planets we controlled. It was the remnant of the old Unified Authority Broadcast Network, the pangalactic superhighway that had once linked Earth to all of its 180 colonies. Back in those days, the satellite broadcast station orbiting Mars was the linchpin of the Network. The Mogats destroyed it during the civil war, cutting Earth off from its colonies.

“The Unifieds launched a temporary broadcast station for evacuation. That was how they got the barges to Olympus Kri,” I said.

“And you think they will let you use it to steal their barges, do you?” asked Admiral Jolly. He had a point.

“I think we can commandeer it along with the barges.”

“You’ll just hack into their security system, no problem.” Sarcasm oozed from his voice.

“Something like that,” I said. “Look, Admiral, the Unifieds aren’t expecting us to enter their space. They’re not going to have extensive security guarding that satellite.”

It was like breaking into a bank. There might be several layers of security, but they’re all outside the safe. Once you get past the front entrance, the counters, and the door of the safe, you’re in …right?

So much of my plan was based on guesswork, but we did not have much of a choice. If we’d had another week, we’d have had time to repair the spy ship and locate the barges. We’d have been able to breach their computer systems, too. In another week, the Avatari would incinerate two more planets. Millions of people would die. That did not seem to matter to the Unifieds. After evacuating Olympus Kri, they seemed to have decided that the only survival that mattered was their own.

“You’re basing your plans on a lot of guesswork,” said Jolly. He didn’t like the plan. I could hear it in his voice.

“Educated guesses,” I said. Putting him in charge had been a mistake. I would correct that mistake when I got back. I wasn’t only the highest-ranking Marine, I reminded myself. I was the chief of the Praetorian Guard. Who would I place in charge? I asked myself. I currently had two officers to choose from, Pete Wallace or Curtis Liotta. Either might be better than Jolly, but not by much.

“I’m not inclined to authorize this operation,” said Jolly.

“Really?” I asked, planning out the admiral’s early retirement in my mind.

“You’re taking an unreasonable risk,” said Jolly.

“Admiral, doing nothing would be an unreasonable risk. The aliens are going to attack Gobi in two days. How many people do you expect to evacuate without the barges?”

“That is not the point, General. Civilian casualties are not our only concern.” He paused, looked at his notes, and said, “Once you launch your transports, how long will it take you to board the barges?”

He thinks he’s in charge, I told myself. I can pull the rug out from under this bastard at any time. But I still played along. I did not have time to retire his ass at the moment. I was in the Orion Arm, he was in Perseus, and I could not spare an hour to fly out and find him, so I decided to play nice for now.

“We just went over this, Admiral. I told you it should take no more than three minutes to place teams aboard all twenty-five barges,” I said.

“Three minutes? That seems very optimistic,” said Jolly.

Three minutes was not optimistic; it was utter bullshit, but he didn’t know that. I said, “It’s a realistic estimate, sir. Remember, the clock doesn’t start counting down until we start launching transports. Until then, the Unifieds won’t know we are there. That means we can pull the spy ship right up to their docks.”

I could not tell if Wallace and Liotta agreed with him or realized he was a coward. Maybe they’d known he was a coward from the start. Whatever their reasons, they had become silent.

“Three minutes, is that really possible?” asked Jolly. He was starting to come around.

“Absolutely, sir,” I said, staring into his virtual eyes, willing myself to look as honest and sincere as any Marine in history. “If we catch the Unifieds napping, the entire mission will be over in eight minutes. We’ll be done before their ships arrive on the scene.”

“This is all moot unless your engineers get that stealth cruiser going,” Jolly pointed out.

“Absolutely, Admiral. I wouldn’t dream of running the mission without a working spy ship.” In truth, I had a plan that involved distracting the Unifieds by attacking Earth with one fleet while sending a second fleet to commandeer the barges. I did not think I could get permission for that plan. If it came down to stealing the barges without the spy ship, I’d begin the mission with a visit to Admiral Jolly …then maybe I’d ask his replacement for permission to attack Earth.

Mars got the spy ship running.

While his men began work on the hull and the engines, he sent a message across all thirteen fleets looking for engineers with stealth-generator experience. Three men responded. Before Congress had banished us clones to space, they had worked as technicians in the lab that developed the stealth engines.

We were in business.

Walking through the corridors of the cruiser, I could see that the ship was still a wreck. Not having enough time to replace the ruined sections of the hull, Mars’s engineers had patched the holes as best they could. Plasticized metal scabs marked spots where shrapnel had cut through the walls. Most of the holes were the size of a coin, but a few of the rips were so large you could drive a jeep through them.

Mars’s engineers ignored fixes deemed nonessential to the operation of the ship. As I entered the second deck, I noticed that the lights were out. “You going to fix those?” I asked Mars. The surveillance and recon computers were on this deck. The engineers Mars had sent to hack into the broadcast station would work on this deck as well.

When I pointed this out to him, Mars said, “God be praised, they’ll be wearing soft-shelled armor, sir.”

“Yeah, so?”

“This might be an excellent opportunity for them to acquaint themselves with the lighting array along their visors.”

“What if they decide to remove their helmets?”