Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

“Yes, sir,” I said, a sinking feeling beginning in my stomach. Had Grace already been a senator when Congress banned Liberator clones from Earth and the entire Orion Arm? He looked old enough.

“Are you the same Wayson Harris who survived the battle on Little Man?” Grace asked. “Are you one of the Little Man Seven?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“And you testified about that battle before the House of Representatives?” More and more this was sounding like a military tribunal.

“Yes, sir,” I said. The rapidity of Grace’s questions left me nervous.

“You were reported as killed in action at Ravenwood Outpost,” Grace stated.

“That is correct, sir,” I said.

“But you were not killed there?” Grace asked.

Apparently not, I thought. What I said was, “No, sir.”

“According to your military record, you were promoted to the rank of colonel in the Unified Authority Marines by Admiral Che Huang. Is that correct?”

“That is correct, sir,” I said. A massive headache brewed in the back of my skull.

The entire room broke out in loud applause. I turned toward the gallery and saw that every man and woman had risen to their feet. The only person remaining in his seat was Freeman. He managed to camouflage his confusion much better than I did. He sat looking straight ahead toward William Grace, his hands by his side.

“Welcome home, Colonel Harris. It is a distinct pleasure to welcome back a war hero like your.”

“I’m afraid I am confused, sir,” I said. He could not hear me over the applause, so I waited a moment for the gallery to quiet down then repeated myself. “I don’t understand, sir.”

“Not expecting a hero’s welcome?” Grace asked.

“I’m not sure I deserve one,” I said.

Grace laughed. “We know more about you than you might think. After the Mogats defeated the Earth Fleet, we found a video record among the late Admiral Huang’s possessions. The record included conversations you had with Huang about infiltrating the Mogat Fleet.”

“I didn’t know he kept a record of that,” I said.

“For his memoirs,” Grace explained. “Huang saw himself as a man of destiny.”

“I see,” I said.

“We also have received another account of your actions on the enemy ship. We know, for instance, that you were captured while transmitting Mogat battle plans to Huang.”

That was not entirely accurate. While I had managed to infiltrate the enemy flagship, my life as a spy did not last long. The Mogats caught me trying to sneak off of one of their battleships after planting a listening device on the bridge.

“How did you get onto their ship?” somebody called from the gallery.

“Excellent question,” Grace said. “How did you manage that?”

Again the room rang with applause.

I decided it might be prudent to leave some of the gorier details out. “Everybody knew that the Mogats were going to attack New Columbia,” I said. “I flew into Safe Harbor after the planetary authority evacuated the city. When the Mogats arrived, I located one of their commando teams and stowed away aboard their transport.” It sounded so simple and benevolent when I phrased it that way. I did not mention that I snapped a man’s neck and stole his uniform.

More applause. This time the applause was longer and louder than before.

I’d used the term “Mogat” in a less-than-accurate fashion. The majority of the sailors I ran into had come from the member planets of the Confederate Arms Treaty Organizations. The top officers and engineers were all Japanese from Ezer Kri. If I wanted to help establish an alliance between Earth, the Confederates, and the Japanese, however, I needed to downplay the roles that the Japanese and the Confederates had taken in the war. And we did need that alliance.

With their four hundred self-broadcasting ships, the Mogats would win the war rather easily if they fought us individually. If we formed an alliance, we might stand a chance, though I could not see how.

“As I understand it, you warned Admiral Huang that the Mogats planned to attack New Tuscany,” Grace said. “That was how he was able to rout their fleet.”

“I believe that is correct,” I said.

“Why have you returned to Earth, Colonel Harris?” Grace asked. William Grace, they called him “Wild Bill” Grace in the media, was a short, chubby man. He may have been five-foot-three, or maybe even shorter. He weighed a good three hundred pounds. He was bald from his forehead to his crown, with a bushy ring of gray hair running between his ears. He smiled genially, but something in his eyes suggested strength and suspicion.

“Yoshi Yamashiro, the governor of Shin Nippon, sent me,” I said. “He wants to form an alliance with the Unified Authority and the Confederate Arms.”

“Are you working for the Japanese?” Grace asked. The applause had vanished. The auditorium became as quiet as an operating room. Grace’s smile evaporated as he waited for me to answer.

“No, sir. Yamashiro found us stranded in space. He rescued us and brought us here, and he asked me to deliver the message that he wanted to make an alliance,” I said.

Several silent moments passed. It was the loudest sort of silence, with Grace glaring at me and curious onlookers watching to see what Freeman and I would do next.

“What does Governor Yamashiro have in mind?” Grace asked.

“The Mogats declared war on C.A.T.O. and the Japanese,” I said. C.A.T.O. was the Confederate Arms Treaty Organization.

“We were aware of their split,” Grace said.

That surprised me. Without the Broadcast Network, Earth should have been completely cut off. The beginnings of the Mogat-Confederate Arms War might have started near Earth space, but there should have been no way for Unified Authority Intelligence to track the progress of the war.

Then something that I should have noted from the start occurred to me. Admiral Brocius of the Central Cygnus Fleet was sitting in the gallery. He should have been marooned sixty thousand light-years away with the ships of his fleet. How could he have come for this meeting?

“The Mogats have the upper hand. They control more than four hundred ships.”

I supposed that Brocius might have been on Earth when the Mogats attacked Earth; but with the Republic on high alert and a mobile enemy, he would most likely have stayed with his fleet.

“The Japanese escaped with four battleships. Is that correct, Colonel?” Grace asked.

“Yes, sir, four ships,” I said.

Maybe Yamashiro had set us up. Maybe he knew what kind of reception awaited him on Earth. But why go to all of the trouble of finding me only to throw me to the wolves?

It wasn’t only Admiral Brocius. As I looked into the gallery, I started noticing other officers. Having served under Brocius, I spotted him before I saw the others; but they were there. I saw a commander whom I remembered from my days with the Scutum-Crux Fleet.

I did not have time for associating names, faces, and fleet locations. How did they know that I broadcasted the information about New Tuscany to Admiral Huang? Arrogant and antisynthetic, Huang would never have admitted that I gave him the information.

“How did you know the Japanese had four ships, sir?” I asked Grace. It did not make sense. The Mogats, the Japanese, and the Confederate Arms would all have that information, but how could they know it on Earth?

“We know a great deal about the battle between the Atkins Believers and the Confederate Arms,” Grace said. “The Unified Authority is not as stranded as you might think, Colonel Harris.”

When strangers flew an enemy ship into a city that was recently attacked, the government appointed organizations to watch over them. Whether it was Central Intelligence, or Republic Security, or Naval Intelligence, some agency had the job of watching us discreetly, and they did a fine job of it, too. Freeman and I knew someone was watching us, but we did not feel like prisoners.