Steven Kent - The Clone Elite

“Yeah, I shook ’em,” I said.

Thomer acknowledged my joke with a grin and a nod, then said, “Come with me, sir. Philips is warming up our jeep.”

“Philips? He’s still around?” I asked. I liked Mark Philips; but I would not have been surprised to hear he had been shot, drummed out of the Corps, or thrown in the brig for life. He had a talent for rubbing people the wrong way, especially officers.

“Sure he’s around; the Corps needs every man,” Thomer said.

Thomer led the way through the terminal and out to the street. We passed a team of Marines loading gear into the backs of trucks. We passed companies waiting for rides to arrive. The snow-lined sidewalks glistened in the sunlight. The cold, fresh air stung my skin in a pleasant way. A fine powder of dry snow hung in the air.

“Any sign of the aliens yet?” I asked Thomer.

“You would know more about that than I do, sir. They’ve kept us completely in the dark so far,” he said. “If we’re fighting aliens this time, are these the same aliens you saw when we invaded the Mogats?”

“Officially?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“How about unofficially?” Thomer asked.

“I still don’t know,” I said.

“Thanks, sir.”

“Anytime, Sergeant.”

Thomer pointed to a jeep up ahead. “That’s our ride.”

“Have you been on New Copenhagen long?” I asked, as we walked toward the jeep. I half expected Thomer to ask, “Officially?”

“Two days, sir. I was in the third rotation for Terraneau and Bristol Kri. If those fights had lasted another day, they would have flown me in.”

“You’re all right for a natural-born,” I said. “At least you’re up to the fight.”

“Thank you, sir,” Thomer said.

Kelly Thomer was a clone, of course, but like every other clone, he had been programmed to believe he was natural-born. Clones like Thomer, who had an introspective nature, tended to question the logic of their neural programming. Introspection was a self-destructive trait for a clone. If they convinced themselves they were synthetic, they would trigger the death reflex, but ignoring the questions caused them cognitive dissonance. So clones like Thomer spent a lot of time trying to convince themselves that they were clones even though they harbored deep suspicions that they weren’t. It was an intellectual juggling act that might one day prove fatal.

“If it ain’t the new XO,” Philips said, as Thomer stowed my twin duffel bags in the back of the jeep. “Things must really be desperate if they’re letting an asshole like you back in, sir.”

“Philips, shouldn’t you be in a brig somewhere?” I asked, climbing in the passenger’s seat.

“Yeah, but they sent me here to face the alien firing squad instead,” Philips said. “It’s one of them opportunities to die with honor.”

“And they made you a sergeant?” I asked, looking at the stripes on his uniform.

“Everyone who survived the invasion got promoted,” Thomer said. “Even Philips.”

“Well, I’m not surprised he got promoted, though I am surprised he was able to hold on to it,” I said. Philips, who was once the oldest buck private in the history of the Marines, had a knack for bouncing up and down in rank.

Philips laughed. “How are you doing, Harris?” he asked. “And how the hell did you end up as an officer?”

I ignored him calling me by my last name because he’d won my respect in combat. I ignored his question because I hated the gold bar on my collar.

“Thomer, how did you know I was coming in?” I asked.

“It’s on the duty roster, you’re our executive officer,” Thomer said. “Somebody went out of their way to surround you with old friends. Your buddy Freeman is the company’s civilian advisor.”

“Ray Freeman is here?”

“Oh sure, he’s here,” Philips muttered as he put the jeep in gear. The sun was a white-gold disc in the sky. Tall buildings cast clearly defined shadows that stretched across streets and painted empty parking lots. The day was as bright as a summer day, but the air was winter crisp.

I had never seen such preparation for battle. We turned a corner and passed a team of technicians placing the final touches on a rocket launcher. A few blocks later, we saw soldiers stringing wires through a bombproof barricade.

Philips drove to the lakeshore, where a shattered layer of ice stretched into the horizon in a web of tiny white islands and steel gray water. Along the shore stood rows of trackers—motion-tracking robots that looked like barber poles. I’d seen trackers armed with everything from machine guns to missiles. These trackers had heavy-caliber machine guns and particle-beam cannons.

“I’d hate to be the alien that tries to cross that lake,” Thomer said. “You’d be wide open with no place to hide.”

“What if they’re waterproof?” I asked. “Those things might be able to walk along the bottom of the lake.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that,” Philips said. “The stuff they have in the water makes a machine-gun colonic look like an act of mercy. If there’s so much as a tadpole alive in that pond, I’d be surprised.”

“Have you ever seen a buildup like this?” Thomer asked me.

“Nope, not like this,” I said.

“They must be doing ten times as much on Earth,” Thomer said.

“Don’t count on it,” I said. “I think they sent their best men and equipment here.”

“Bullshit,” Philips said.

“That’s not just talk?” Thomer asked.

“Look around. There are over a million well-armed troops here. We have tanks, jets, and orbital support. Thomer, if we can’t pull this one out, there’s no point in trying again on Earth.”

“I heard they had three times this many men on Terraneau,” Philips said.

“They didn’t know what they were up against,” I said.

“Do you know what we’re up against?” Philips asked. “They haven’t told us shit.” He sounded angry. I didn’t blame him.

“Are they trying to find someplace safe to settle?” Thomer asked.

“Not in this galaxy,” I said.

Silence followed. We drove through town. Thomer and Philips took me on a circuitous route to show me all of the installations the Corps of Engineers had under way, but they had lost their enthusiasm once I said this was the final stand. Philips drove to our camp—a luxury hotel that had been converted into the most comfortable base in the history of the Marines. While he and Thomer returned the jeep to the motor pool, I reported in.

Once in my room on the twenty-third floor of the hotel, I changed into my bodysuit and armor. As I stowed away my clothes, I noticed a message on the communications console beside my bed. The base commander wanted me to report to his office ASAP.

“So you are the man I have heard so much about?” First Lieutenant Warren Moffat said, as I stepped out of the elevator and onto the mezzanine floor. He sat on a white leather sofa just outside the glass doors that led to what had once been the hotel’s administrative offices.

“The way I hear it, you single-handedly won the Mogat War, Harris.”

I did not like the way this conversation had started. He did not mean what he’d said as a compliment, he meant it as a challenge. He had just accused me of taking credit for the sacrifices of dead Marines, and the guy was clearly looking for a fight.

“I’m looking for Base Command,” I said, knowing I had already found it, but hoping to derail this conversation.

“You’re standing in it,” Moffat said. “General Glade asked me to wait for you. Guess you’re here.” He rose to his feet.

I started ahead, but the lieutenant stepped in front of me. “Let me give you a quick prebriefing, XO. I run the company. I run the show. I don’t care if you are a specking Liberator. I don’t care if you survived the specking Mogat invasion. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you turn out to be the next specking messiah, you got that?