Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

“No one knows what became of the Grant .”

I knew what became of Vince Lee and the Grant , but I knew better than to offer that information.

“The truth be told, Harris, it doesn’t matter what rank we give you. Every officer around you is going to know that you are the one calling the shots when it comes to you and your platoon.

“What I need is for you to keep doing what you have been doing. You got a man into Mogat space. Now I want you to find some way for us to get a whole platoon there. You got me, Harris? I want to turn this whole war around so that the chips start to fall in our favor.”

In truth, I didn’t mind being bucked down to sergeant. I actually felt more comfortable around enlisted men than officers. As a boy growing up in U.A. Orphanage #553, my highest aspiration in life had been to make sergeant.

I offered token resistance, then accepted my new life among the conscripts. I remained on the Navy base outside Washington, DC, until further orders arrived, my career entering a two-week period of almost-cryogenic stasis. I had no duties and no assignments.

I spent a lot of time lying around and watching current events on my mediaLink shades. Time wasted. Without the Broadcast Network, the only galactic information the analysts could find came stripped down, prepackaged, and fully spun from the government. The general population had no idea about the attack on the Outer Perseus Fleet. The only events the public heard about were ones that occurred on Earth.

Most political news came in the form of feel-good stories about the Unified Authority restoring its natural glory. “Troop readiness is at an all-time high,” “Wild Bill” Grace said in a State of the Republic address. Members of the Linear Committee met with key senators to discuss opening several new orphanages. Construction could start any day, but it never did. A new shipyard was under construction orbiting Earth. The global stock exchange rebounded nicely after a lackluster week. The Seattle Mariners, the oldest and winningest sports organization in the galaxy, looked like a shoo-in to win its fifth straight Galactic Series. There was no news from space and no hint that Washington, DC, was in contact with the fleets of its former enemies.

I switched off the mediaLink shades that had come with my room and pulled out a disposable pair I’d purchased with my hundred-dollar winnings. The disposables came with a temporary account that I set up under the name Arlind Marsten—an alias I used during my two years away from the Marines. This would not stop Naval Intelligence or any other organization from tapping into my calls, but it might lull them into thinking I was trying to get around them. Using an optical command, I punched in the code that I wanted to call.

“Hello?” the voice asked cautiously. It was the voice of a little girl.

“How is life on the lam?” I asked.

“Who is this?” the girl asked.

The voice was young and innocent, but the inflections were incongruent. They made her sound indifferent.

“Cut the shit,” I said. Then I added, “All of the Intelligence agencies have computerized receivers that see right through voice masking.”

“Did they recall you yet?” Freeman asked. He continued to use the voice mask, making him sound like an eight-year-old girl. Try as I might, I could not envision the seven-foot hulking giant on the other end of that voice.

“Yeah. I’m a sergeant. How’s that for a demotion? They haven’t told me where I’m going to be stationed.”

Freeman did not respond. A moment later, he asked, “Has Yamashiro shown up yet?”

“Yeah, he arrived a couple of days ago. I only heard about it this afternoon. I don’t know how the negotiations are going. I wasn’t invited.”

“You expected an invitation?” the little girl’s voice asked.

“Did you hear about the Outer Perseus Fleet?” I asked. Freeman said no, so I told him what Brocius had told me, then followed by telling him about my visit to the Mogat ship. I told him every last high-security detail, including the part about the working broadcast engine.

Freeman listened carefully, then changed the subject. “The Mogats have a base near Washington. It’s an old brownstone mansion in Chevy Chase.”

“What kind of a base?” I asked.

“I can’t tell,” Freeman said, as the technology in his microphone turned his low, rumbling voice into a high burbly voice. “I haven’t figured out how to get inside it.”

“Do you think the good guys know about it?” I asked.

“No. I set up a surveillance site in the woods across the street. The Feds never go by.”

“They could be watching by satellite,” I said.

“Yeah,” Freeman said, which meant he did not take the idea seriously.

I almost called Freeman by name but stopped myself for the sake of those listening. That would have come across as too cavalier. Whether or not the Intelligence boys had already tapped into this mediaLink account, they had almost certainly bugged my room. This call was as much about feeding information to Navy Intelligence as it was about trading information with Freeman. The difference was, Freeman knew what we were up to.

“Remember the limo driver who brought us to the base?” I asked.

“The Navy spook in the civilian suit?” Freeman asked.

“That’s the one. He’s looking for you, and he’s pressuring me. Now that I’m back on active duty…”

“Don’t sweat it,” Freeman said. “I’ll handle the situation.” That comment would have sounded a lot more menacing had it not been for Freeman’s little-girl voice.

The next morning, a new operative came dressed as a chauffeur to drive me into town. My old driver, he said, was taking personal leave.

Message delivered.

“Harris, you have a most unstable career. When you came to Ezer Kri, you were a corporal. In the movie they portrayed you as a lieutenant. When we found you in space, you were a colonel. Now you are a sergeant,” Yoshi Yamashiro said, with an uncharacteristic smile. He had yet to light up a cigarette, so he had already bucked tradition, but he wore his usual dark suit and red necktie. He shook his head sadly as he repeated, “A most unstable career.”

I smiled, and said, “When I first met you, you were the governor of Ezer Kri, a loyal colony of the Unified Authority. The next time I saw you, you had allied with the Atkins Believers. Now you are the governor of an independent planet hoping to sign a treaty with the Unified Authority.” I shook my head. “You have a very checkered career.”

Yamashiro smiled and laughed softly. His teeth looked very white against the teak color of his skin.

We met in a conference room with a large screen. Admiral Brocius and I sat on one side of the table. Yoshi Yamashiro sat with an officer and two civilians on the other. The civilians belonged to the Shin Nippon Corps of Engineers. The officer was Captain Hideo Takahashi, Yamashiro’s son-in-law, aide, and full-time shadow.

From what I could tell, the Shin Nippon military only had one branch, a Navy. It could have a second, possibly larger, branch if it militarized its corps of engineers.

The current meeting did not go off without the usual Shin Nippon touches. Yamashiro sat directly at the table with his entourage spread in a protective fan behind him. Yamashiro was still the shogun. Engineers or officers, the men behind him were still his samurai.

“Did you find anything of value in the computer parts Harris brought back from that ship?” Brocius asked. I could tell that he already knew the answer.

“Sadly, the data storage unit was empty,” Yamashiro said.

“Too bad,” Brocius said.