Steven Kent - The Clone Elite

“One of the guys, Boll maybe, thought the Mudders might take down the curtain if we hit them hard enough …You know, maybe drop the curtain so they can land more men. He figures the Navy has ships circling the planet and they’ll drop off supplies and men once the curtain goes down,” Thomer said. “Does that sound possible?”

Supplies. I had forgotten all about supplies. “The military can’t afford to waste men or bullets,” Admiral Brocius had said as he handed me his pistol, and he was right. How many rockets had the Army fired as they defended the Vista Street bunker? How many did they have left? This much I knew—during that last battle, we had lost one-fifth of our Marines.

“I would not know anything about that, Sergeant,” I told Thomer. “I hope you are right, though. I hope we can get more men and supplies.”

We went to sit down at a secluded table. “What about the rest of the men?” I asked. “How is your platoon holding up?”

“Most of them think we won,” Thomer said.

“We did,” I said.

“Won the war,” Thomer clarified.

“Yeah, well, we certainly won the battle,” I said.

“I don’t get that feeling,” Thomer said. “You know something, and I know better than to ask what it might be.” He stared into my face, trying to read me.

“I need you to keep your suspicions to yourself,” I said. “Troop morale is strong right now, let’s keep it that way.”

I finished my coffee. I drank it black, strong and hot. It tasted good, fairly fresh. As I started to leave, Thomer asked, “Some of the guys moved out this morning. I heard you signed them up for some kind of guard duty.”

“Battalion command wanted a detail to guard the Hen House,” I said. “I figured it might be a smart idea to send Philips with them …get him out of the line of fire until he gets his head straight.”

Thomer placed his cup down on the counter and stared at me. He looked angry, maybe exasperated. “The compound for officers’ families?” he asked. “Are you shitting me? Please tell me that you’re joking.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“A few years ago, Philips nearly got himself court-martialed for screwing around with some officer’s wife. Officers’ wives are his favorite brand of scrub.”

“Shit,” I said.

Thomer said nothing.

I thought about calling him back and sending a replacement but opted against it. Depressed as he was, scrub would probably be the last thing on his mind. At least that was what I told myself.

The Army continued repairing its bunkers and servicing its rocket launchers. Apparently the Avatars had broken through our lines somewhere near Vista Street. If the rumors were true, they shot so many holes into a small section of bunker that it caved in under its own weight.

Since we Marines were technically an invasion force, we had nothing to rebuild. Every company in the Marines had a platoon assigned to support ops, and they performed any rebuilding or refurbishing we needed done.

Except for the latrine scrubbers and potato peelers in the support platoon, the company had too little to do while we waited for the next attack. Some men spent their free time roving around Valhalla. I decided to go back out to the spheres, the place General Glade now called “Camp Avatar.” I wasn’t looking for a fight, per se, but I did want to leave the Avatars a housewarming present.

Before leaving, I needed to locate Ray Freeman to ask if he wanted to join me on this excursion. Unfortunately, I could not find him. I left messages at Base Command and the Science Lab then went to requisition some hardware.

Upon taking control of the property, the Marines converted the hotel’s underground parking facility into an armory. Riding the elevator down reminded me of heading through a department store. The sign on the first floor of the garage said, “Combat Armor and Small Arms.” Second floor—“Rockets, Mortars, and Grenades.” Third floor—“Motor Pool: Tanks, Jackals, Jeeps, ATVs, and Robots.”

When I asked the supply officer on the third floor what I might find on the lower floors, he said, “You don’t want to go down to the fourth.” Then he leaned over his duty desk, and whispered, “There are enough nukes down there to fry this entire planet. We might lose this battle, but we are not going to lose the war, if you know what I mean.”

“Aren’t you worried about leaks?” I asked. The officer was wearing fatigues that offered no protection against radiation.

“Not me,” he said. “What’s the worst that can happen—I start shooting blanks? Sounds like a beni in my book. Those guys who designed the clones had it right from the start. ‘Copulate, don’t populate.’ Heh. Words to live by.”

I pretended to laugh. I, of course, was a clone. So was the duty officer, though the dolt would never so much as suspect it. With a mind like his, the death reflex was the least of this guy’s worries.

“Look,” I said, “I want to check out a Jackal and three trackers.”

“The trackers are no problem, sir, but I’ll need authorization before I can give you a Jackal,” he said. “For anything bigger than a motorcycle, I need approval from Base Command.”

A communications console sat on the desk. I reached toward it, paused, and asked, “Will General Glade do?”

“Sure,” the duty officer said with a snide smile. “You just ring up your old pal J. P. Glade and get his approval.”

I punched in the code, and Glade’s assistant appeared on the screen. I asked to speak to the general—it never pays to aim low—and the aide sent me up the ladder to a captain, who passed me to a major, who sent me to one of the colonels who attended the briefing at the Science Lab.

“What is it, Harris?” he asked.

“I need to requisition some equipment, sir,” I said.

“You’re calling the general’s line for a requisition?” the colonel sounded incredulous.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m down here in the Armory, and—”

“Put the duty officer on,” the colonel snapped.

“Right here, sir,” he said, his voice nearly cracking.

The colonel looked at the duty officer, and said, “What the hell is the matter with you, boy? Give the lieutenant anything he wants. You got that?” Then he ended the connection.

I drove out of the garage with a Jackal, three trackers, an M27, two particle-beam cannons, and three combat helmets. Anyone else would have spliced video cameras into the trackers, but I knew nothing about electronics. I broke things; I did not splice them.

Before leaving, I returned to my quarters to put on my armor. I found a message from Freeman on my communications console, so I called him back and told him what I had in mind. He said he wanted to come along. An hour later, Freeman showed up wearing his custom-made oversized combat armor, and we drove into the woods just north of town.

We drove in silence—Freeman observing everything we passed and me holding a silent conversation with myself. No surprise. I had learned years ago that time spent in the company of Ray Freeman was lonelier than time spent completely alone.

The Jackal handled just like a jeep, though it had a lot more power. It had built-in radar. A screen on the dashboard showed an overhead readout of the world around us. Remembering how the Avatars’ light bolts had shot through these vehicles as if they were made of papier-mâché, I did not bother with the retractable armor. If we ran into aliens, the armor would not protect us.

“What do you think it will take to win this thing?” I finally asked. We had been driving for half an hour.

“What makes you think we can win?” Freeman asked.

“Do your scientist friends have any ideas?” I asked.