Steven Kent - The Clone Redemption

These men liked shooting unarmed sailors and men they caught unawares, but they weren’t prepared for me to return fire. As they stood gaping at their injured friend, I rolled out from under the truck and shot one in the face.

Being shot with a particle beam is nothing like being shot with a bullet. There is no kick, no force of physics that sends you flying backward as the slug tears a tunnel through your body. The ray from a particle-beam pistol hits with no more force than the beam from a flashlight.

The man I had shot dropped where he stood, his hands twitching as his head, neck, and collar evaporated into a blood-colored fog.

One of the remaining looters tried to hold his ground, pointing his gun in my general vicinity and spraying unaimed bullets into a wall. The other two cut and ran.

I nailed the shooter first, hitting him in the right shoulder. He screamed and fell down thrashing, an inch of arm bone poking out of shredded flesh. I hit the first of the two runners in the ass as he dashed up the street. If he’d had another second, he would have reached a corner to hide; but the particle beam blew his legs from under him. He fell face-first to the ground. I left him there, knowing he’d bleed to death in another minute.

The last of the looters ran like a gazelle, his long legs pumping as he screamed and pleaded. Still not looking back, he pitched his rifle over his shoulder and continued running and screaming.

Me, I had turned into a mass of instincts, reflexes, and anger. The Liberator gland had flooded my body with enough adrenaline and testosterone to bring back the dead. I could have picked this last guy off, but ripping him apart with my bare hands seemed like a more satisfactory solution.

Unlike this poor bastard’s M27, my tiny particle-beam pistol had not slowed me as I ran. I was in better shape than him, too. He had a head start; but he also had a gut, and I gained ground on him quickly.

Pumping his legs and arms as fast as he could, he risked a quick look back over his shoulder and saw me coming. He tried to run faster, but he had nothing in reserve. He stumbled, righted himself, and lost more ground as we tore across empty streets.

I was breathing hard but not panting as I came up on him. His wheezing breaths sounded painful, and his hair and neck were covered with sweat. So were mine. We were on Gobi, the galaxy’s biggest desert. Still running, I reached out, grabbed the bastard by the collar, and pulled back as hard as I could. His feet went forward, his head fell back, and he landed square on his ass.

“Don’t shoot! Please, for God’s sake, don’t shoot!”

Fat old Admiral Jolly came waddling out of his hiding hole issuing orders as if I were a private. “Kill that man!” he yelled. “Shoot him.”

Still holding the looter by the back of his collar, I twisted his neck so that he rolled on his stomach with his face pressed into the ground. “Any last words?” I asked.

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t shoot at you. It wasn’t me! It was Todd. The whole thing was Todd’s idea.” I had a knee in his back, and I crushed his face into the street. His words sounded muffled.

“Kill him!” Jolly shouted.

“Todd’s idea …Todd’s idea. Oh God, don’t shoot me. I didn’t know he was going to kill anybody,” the guy sobbed.

“Look, we got all kinds of stuff.” The stupid bastard wanted to bribe me. He told me that he had already found millions of dollars’ worth of stuff, and that he would find more.

I was too busy calculating the odds to listen.

“I promise I’ll give you half of everything …no all of it. All of it! I’m good for it.”

In my mind, looters were the lowest of the bottom-feeders, lower even than natural-born officers. I believed in the policy of shooting looters on sight. The policy made sense. In this case, though, I made an exception.

My instinct, of course, was to kill, but giving in to that instinct would have been dangerous. I was in combat-reflex mode. The more violent I became, the more hormone ran through my veins.

“Sounds like you’ve got the golden goose,” I said.

I took some of my weight off the guy’s back; and, still whimpering, he placed his hands over his head to protect himself.

“Maybe I should let you go,” I said.

“We can be partners. Don’t shoot me.” His whining gave me a headache.

“How do I know you aren’t going to keep it all?” I asked.

“I’ll bring it. I promise. We can split it fifty-fifty!”

So now we were back to fifty-fifty, I thought. “I don’t trust you,” I said, pressing his face into the ground.

“I swear! I swear!”

Jolly shouted, “Kill him, Harris. That’s an order.” He hadn’t figured me out yet. He would in a moment.

“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” I repeated.

“Ask anyone. I’m honest. I’m good for it.”

“I’d ask your friends, but they’re all dead. Everyone else is gone,” I growled. Good thing the looter could not see the smile on my face. I was playing with him and having fun.

I gave his face one last shove into the street, then I stood and let him up. I said, “We meet right here day after tomorrow. If you’re not here with enough swag to fill a transport, you’re a dead man. You hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah! You’re going to be a rich man!” he said.

“I can still shoot you. Tomorrow, next week …You got that?”

“You won’t be sorry. You won’t. You’re going to be rich.”

“Get out of here,” I said.

The bastard tried to shake my hand. If he’d been the one with the gun, he would have shot me in the back and not thought twice about it. But I had the gun, so he assured me that I was going to be a wealthy man, then he walked five paces away and sprinted around a corner.

“Why did you let him go?” asked Admiral Jolly.

“Didn’t you hear? He’s going to make me rich,” I said.

“You’re never going to see him again,” said Jolly.

“Damn straight I’m not going to see him again. Why the speck do you think we evacuated this planet? In three hours, this city is going to be dust, and that bastard is going to be dust along with it,” I said. I caught a brief glimpse of the looter scurrying away like a rodent. That summed him up, just another rodent.

Jolly was indignant. He screamed, “I told you to kill him. I ordered you to kill him! You disobeyed a direct order.” His face flushed with anger, he waved his hands like he wanted to fly. He became even more flustered when I ignored his rant and walked past him.

“Yeah,” I said as I knelt and picked up the M27 to examine it. “We need to talk about that. Admiral, I am relieving you of command.”

“You’re what?” asked Jolly.

“I’m relieving you of command. These are dire times, Admiral, and you’re not fit for command.”

“I’m what?” asked Jolly.

“Not fit for command,” I repeated. “I am telling you to step down.”

“To what?”

“To retire,” I said. “Go set up a villa by the beach. Go spend time with your grandkids.” He didn’t have any grandchildren, of course. He was a clone, and we clones were as sterile as boiling alcohol. You could probably kill germs with the “sperm” we produced.

“Who the hell do you think you are speaking to?” he screamed.

“Admiral Steven R. Jolly, Enlisted Man’s Navy, retired,” I said.

“And who do you think will take my place?”

“Probably Admiral Liotta …maybe Wallace. I haven’t decided.”

“Do you honestly believe Warhawk Wallace is fit for command?”

“Nope,” I admitted. “It really doesn’t matter. If Wallace isn’t any better than you, I’ll retire him.”