Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

“They’re like robots,” I said. “They didn’t even shine a light into the room.”

“They know the room is empty,” Illych said. “Their motion sensors aren’t picking anything up, so they know that no one is down here.”

“Because you’re jamming the sensors,” I said.

“But they don’t know I’m jamming their sensors. All they know is that their alarm system says the coast is clear.”

When I considered that point, that their alarm system told them the coast was clear, I realized that the Mogats had made an easy mistake. I did not like to admit it, but I might have made the same mistake, though I would have remained more alert. I filed the lesson away as we started down that hall again.

Looking down the various arteries that we passed, I spotted distant lights as the Mogat squads and fire teams made their way through the ship.

“They’re getting too close,” I said to Illych.

“I’ll take care of it,” Illych said. He contacted the team in the bridge and had them set off some sensors. Moments later, the Mogats turned and headed toward the bow of the ship.

“It’s all too easy,” I said. “They’re idiots.”

By this time we had nearly reached the main launch bay. Crossing that last empty stretch of corridor, we peered in. Two transports sat on the launch-bay deck. Lights shone in the nearest transport’s cockpit. Using a telescopic lens, I could see the shape of a pilot’s head though the glass. I pointed him out to Illych.

“I see him,” Illych said.

Three guards stood talking at the base of the transport. I could easily have killed them, but our plans would have failed if I had. In order for our plan to work, we needed the guards to give the all clear.

“You do know how to fly one of these birds?” I asked.

“Fly a transport? Colonel, I picked that up in basic,” Illych assured me.

“This one is fifty years old,” I said.

“No problem.”

“But what do you do once you touch down on their ship?” I asked.

“I catch a ride to their base,” Illych said.

“They may have to broadcast there. Then what? You won’t be able to tell us where you are.”

“This is recon,” Illych said. “Never underestimate the value of having a trained saboteur in your enemy’s base.”

I had to admire him. The clone had nerve.

The launch bay gaped into space, as depressurized as the rest of the ship. The locks and blast doors might have been blasted open as the Outer Perseus Fleet sank this ship, but my guess was that the same person that lowered the shields opened the locks.

Why did the Mogats care about a wrecked ship? How had they known we were here? Why had they gone to all of the trouble of installing a second broadcast engine and protecting it during the attack? The same questions flashed again and again in my mind.

Those thoughts running through my head, I hid beside the door and aimed my pistol at the men guarding the nearest transport. I could have picked them off so easily. I could have hit the first two Mogats and finished the job so quickly that the third man would not have had time to notice his two buddies explode before he died as well.

But that was not the plan.

“Do you know how to use this?” Illych asked, showing me the handy little remote he had used to jam the motion sensors.

I pulled out my remote. It was the size of a deck of cards. Light emitted from one of those buttons. “As long as this light is on, the sensors are off,” I said, pointing at the lit button.

“Close enough,” Illych said.

“Then I’m good,” I said. “Good luck, Illych.”

“Thank you, sir,” Illych said. He crouched in the hatch and waited until the guards looked the other way, then he entered the landing area and sprang up the side of the wall, reaching the forty-foot ceiling in mere seconds.

The rear of the nearest kettle sat wide open—an easy target. With their obsolete design, the guards’ helmets offered limited peripheral vision. Their helmets were what Unified Authority Marines had worn fifty years ago. I knelt in the shadows and watched as Illych glided along the ceiling, then dropped onto the roof of the transport.

“How does it look from there?” he asked.

“Free for the taking,” I said.

I stood and took a deep breath. I could feel the soothing warmth of the adrenaline and endorphins mixture filtering into my veins. I was out of practice. I should never have had a combat reflex watching somebody else in action. Now, after all that time I spent living among the farmers, the reflex started prematurely.

“My turn to play fox,” I called out over the interLink, warning the SEALs to lie low. I pressed the lit button on my stealth kit, shutting off the jamming device. The sensors discovered me instantly. Inside the launch bay, all three guards drew their guns. Though they did not see me, alarms inside their helmets told them I was just outside the hatch.

They’re inside the launch bay! the Mogat captain shouted.

Just outside it! a guard called back.

We got ’em!

The guards came tromping toward me, firing blind in my direction. Silver-red lasers streaked past me and seared the wall of the corridor. I pushed hard against a bulkhead and launched myself full speed down the hall. Laser fire followed me, striking walls and floors moments behind me.

Under normal circumstances, I would not have worried about three untrained idiots shooting lasers in my direction. Judging by the spread of their shots, they would not hit me unless they were aiming at somebody else. But this was different. Under normal circumstances I could fire back. This time I could only run away.

I continued just ahead of them, feeling no panic. The combat hormone flowed through me, keeping my mind keen. I pushed off walls, turning right and left down whatever small arteries looked clear. I found a ladder shaft leading between two decks and shot up to the next deck. The Mogats came ambling after me, leaving their transports completely unguarded. Once I reached the top of the ladder, I had to slow down to keep from losing them.

I turned one corner, then the next. Moving at this speed with little depth perception, I slid past several junctions too fast to change direction. Lasers struck the walls above and below me. The Mogats were closing in.

Nearing the end of a corridor, I managed to push off a wall and bounce into a long foyer. It was an ugly, abrupt change in direction that I made by kicking off one wall and slamming headfirst into another, before rolling sideways into the entryway. The maneuver sent a shock down my shoulders and back.

“Illych, report,” I said.

“I’m in,” Illych said.

“You have the pilot?”

“Sure.”

When I peered out the hatch, I saw the Mogats ducking for cover at the other end of the corridor. One of them shined a light in my direction, pointing it above my head. It was comical. These boys were so poorly trained. The commando stuck his head way out to get a good look, then fired blindly down the hall, missing me by several yards.

“You took out the pilot?” I asked.

“Done,” Illych said.

The idiot fired again. This time he was less than three feet off. For the first time, I started to worry about them spotting me.

“Have you traded clothes?” I asked. The plan was for Illych to kill the transport pilot, then change places with him. Illych would dress the pilot in his Special Operations armor and dress himself in the pilot’s flight gear. He would do so in the pressurized cockpit, the only place on the entire battleship in which we could now control the environment.

“It’s not a very good fit. Their pilot had a few inches on me. I’m not sure which looks worse, him crammed into my armor or me in his flight gear.”