Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

I watched the news for three hours, then went to the mess for dinner. When I returned to my room, I sat on my bed and slipped on the shades. Sometime after midnight, I fell asleep.

A warning tone sounded from the communications console beside my bed, waking me out of a restless sleep. For a moment I did not remember where I was as I fumbled around in the dark. My mouth felt dry. Finally I found the switch.

“Colonel Harris?” The voice had a familiar stodgy quality.

With my windows tinted against the sunlight and cool air pouring in through the vents, it felt like midnight in my room. The blood rushed to my head as I sat up, and I felt slightly dizzy but mostly alert.

“This is Harris,” I said.

“Colonel, please hold for Admiral Brocius,” the woman said in an officious manner.

“Colonel Harris, how are you this morning?” Brocius sounded unusually chipper for an admiral. “I believe you served briefly under my command some years back.”

Vice Admiral Alden Brocius commanded the Central Cygnus Fleet. I almost saluted when he identified himself, just out of reflex, even though he wouldn’t have seen me since our connection was only audio. That latent salute might have been programming in my Liberator nervous system, but it probably had more to do with my upbringing in the orphanage. As lowly clones in a military clone farm, we learned to salute by the age of three.

“Colonel, I was wondering if you would join me for breakfast this morning,” Brocius said.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. I had not been recalled to active duty, so I did not technically need to call him sir. My recall was just a formality, however. Considering who had extended the breakfast invitation, I expected to be recalled to active duty by the time I finished my eggs.

“Do you want to meet in the officers’ mess?” I asked.

“That won’t be necessary,” Brocius said. “I know a little place near Annapolis that might be just right.”

It took me two minutes to run a razor over my stubble and sterile-light my teeth. I did not worry about brushing my hair. As a veteran of the military orphanage system, I considered a crew cut the height of fashion—and I was always in fashion. The only fresh clothes I had was a colonel’s uniform. I dressed and left.

A limousine idled outside the door of the barracks. As I approached, a driver in a petty officer’s uniform climbed out of the car, opened a door at the back of the car, then saluted. I returned the salute and climbed into the car.

“Glad you could make it,” Admiral Brocius said, as I slid onto the seat.

“I’m not familiar with the protocol. Am I supposed to salute the chauffeur before entering the limousine?” I asked.

“You should if you are on active duty,” Brocius said. “But you are not on active duty yet.”

“I get the feeling I may be recalled,” I said.

“Would you like to return to active duty?” Brocius asked.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. That was a lie. I had also tried to convince myself that I did not want to be recalled, but I knew it was a lie as well. I was designed for military use. I had recently chosen suicide over a quiet peaceful life on a farming planet.

“I asked around. If you came back, you might not be able to reenter as a colonel,” Brocius said, pretending I had told him that I could not wait to reup. “That was never official, you know. Admiral Huang sort of muscled that last promotion of yours through for security purposes.

“We might be able to preserve your officer status.”

“I’m happy as a civilian, sir,” I said. I did not want to make this too easy for him.

Brocius ignored this comment. “How do you see the war going?” He asked this with a relaxed but interested air. He sounded like a man asking a salesman for advice about cars. “What do we need to win this war?”

The first time I had seen Alden Brocius, he had black hair, brown eyes, and the typical officer’s disdain for enlisted men and clones. He was tall and slender back then. That was four years ago.

Over the last four years he had put on a few pounds and grown a beard. The hair on his head and in his beard had turned gray. He looked like a man struggling to hold on to his fifties. The wrinkles around the corners of his eyes blended into his cheeks. He looked tired.

“What can we do to win this one, Harris?” he repeated.

“The Mogats won’t engage in a surface war, they’re not that dumb, so you’re going to need a self-broadcasting fleet if you want to engage them,” I said. No brilliant observations there, but I did not have anything brilliant to add on the spur of the moment.

“Do you think we have time to build another self-broadcasting fleet?” Brocius asked.

“That depends how long it would take to build it,” I said. Then, realizing just what an asinine statement I had just made, I added, “I’ve been out of the loop, sir. I only know what you and the Japanese have told me.

“From what I hear, time might be short. I don’t see the Mogats waiting around forever. I mean three years…”

“Three years?” Brocius asked.

“We built the Galactic Central Fleet in three years,” I said.

“Ah, yes we did. But we had the Network up and running back then. Without the Network, we can’t send unfinished ships between dry docks. We’ll have to start and complete each ship in the same facility.

“We’re not looking at three years this time, we’re looking at ten if we get lucky. Maybe twelve if things don’t fall into place.”

We drove out of town and through a wooded countryside. Finally, we ended up in a residential area. To me, the mansions along the street looked as big as hotels. They had manicured lawns and acre-long driveways. We pulled up to a three-story home with a redbrick façade and brown tile roof.

“Nice place,” I said. “Your home?”

“Not very often,” Brocius said. “My home is the fleet. I guess that makes this more my vacation house. When I’m in town on business, I generally stay in the barracks. It’s much more convenient.”

The car stopped in front of a redbrick walkway that led to the door. Our chauffeur came around and opened the admiral’s door. Not sure if I should wait for the man to open mine as well, I let myself out.

“The place has been in the family for generations. I make it out here two, maybe three times a year,” Brocius said, still continuing the same conversation.

We went inside. Whoever had decorated Admiral Brocius’s home could not decide whether to go modern or antique. The entry had bright lights and shiny smooth walls made out of a modern stone-and-glass hybrid. The builders had made curved corners and pleated the walls. The look was chic, I suppose. Beyond the entryway, the glass/stone material gave way to cherrywood walls, leather furniture, and lots of bookcases. The house had a musty feeling.

We entered a parlor decorated with antique brass instruments. The room had a telescope on a large hutch and a compass the size of a coffee table in the center of the floor. Brocius had an ancient map of some Earth ocean framed on the wall.

We moved on to Brocius’s private study. In this room he had an antique rolltop desk. A painting of an old-time sailing ship cutting through a stormy sea hung on the wall. In one corner of the room stood a cutaway model of an early orbital space station. Like the rooms we entered before it, the office had carpets in the center of the floor with a wide hardwood border.

“What do you think?” Brocius asked.

“It’s comfortable,” I said. In truth, I found the furnishings so dull and dark that they made me sleepy.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Brocius said. “I hate this room. As an admiral, I’m obligated to have at least one room like that in my house. We’re all supposed to love the sea. We’re supposed to be fascinated by the history of navigation. That’s our public image. We have to decorate our houses to look like monuments to naval history.”