Steven Kent - Rogue Clone

In the last moments before my radar went out, three fighters glided alongside my ship. My Starliner must have looked like such a relic compared to those ships. The F-19, designed for space and atmospheric combat, was probably the sleekest fighter in the U.A. arsenal. It had an elongated fuselage that looked like a cross between a stiletto and a dart. Its wings were razor thin but strong enough to handle atmospheric maneuvers. These jets would outpace any fighter in space and fly circles around any attacker that tried to touch down in an atmosphere like Earth’s. The F-19 was the pride of the Air Force.

“Hello, Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four,” one of the fighter pilots said. “Why don’t you follow us, sir?”

This, of course, was fighter pilot humor. The Mars flight computers had complete control over my cockpit. I could not even shut down the power to my engines without asking permission.

A squadron of Tomcats circled the Golan Dry Docks and the nearby disc station. Two battleships were moored nearby. Golan was indeed on high alert. After identifying me and scanning my plane, traffic control brought me in through a partially sealed aperture and armed guards walked me to the security station.

The last time I passed through the posts at this security station, I was identified as Lieutenant Wayson Harris, “Marine on the lam.” This time I was a retired Marine and I was coming to visit the head of Golan security, Colonel Clarence McAvoy.

I handed my papers to the guard and walked toward the post. The Dry Docks’ high alert had brought out the brass. An Army major sat with civilians and enlisted men on the other side of the bulletproof glass. The light on the inside of the booth was bright. After the gloom of the hangar, it made me squint. This, I suspect, was intentional: it’s hard to shoot accurately when your eyes have not adjusted.

“Step forward,” said the guard on the other side of the posts. For all I knew, this was the guy who pulled the gun on me the last time I passed through. He was Army. He wore combat greens, and his M27 was strapped to his belt like a side arm.

I stepped forward.

The corporal snapped to attention. “Welcome to the Dry Docks, Colonel,” he said in a loud enough voice for the people behind the glass to hear. I looked over and saw that even the major now saluted me. I returned the salute and moved on.

“Colonel McAvoy is expecting you, sir. He left word that he wanted to drive you to your meeting personally.”

“Very well,” I said, still trying to figure out how I could have suddenly become a colonel.

McAvoy pulled up in his little base cart—an electrical scooter with a top speed of fifteen miles per hour. “Colonel Harris?” he asked in a voice drenched with mirth. “You’ve gone through the ranks more quickly than any soldier I have known. Weren’t you a Lieutenant last time I saw you?”

“I retired after that,” I said.

We shook hands. “Well, come on Colonel,” McAvoy said. “I thought I should roll out the red carpet for you, just in case.”

“In case of what?” I asked as I climbed into the cart.

“In case you’re on the Joint Chiefs next time I see you.” He started the cart and rolled into the service hall. “Your pal, Huang, called for you. He told me to have you call him the moment you landed.

“You heard about Gateway, right?”

I nodded.

“Bastards,” McAvoy said.

“Colonel?” I asked.

“Welcome back, Harris. You’ve been recalled to active service, and as a colonel. I never thought I would see a clone make colonel, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” Huang looked more tired than he had at the funeral. Dark bags had formed under his dark brown eyes. No trace of that cocky smile showed on his face.

“And the reason for this?”

“Clearance, Harris. Only officers with the rank of colonel or higher are cleared to view the information I’m going to show you. Don’t worry about the commission, I don’t want to leave you in the Corps any longer than I need to.”

Still an anti-synthetic prick, I thought to myself, but I was glad the change was not permanent.

“I don’t suppose you can guess how long the siege on Gateway Outpost lasted?” Huang asked.

I took a moment to think about this. “I watched the feed,” I said. “It was fast.”

“Real fast,” Huang agreed. “No guesses?”

“No,” I said.

“Eight minutes,” he said, a disapproving expression on his face. “Almost to the second.”

“I must be missing something,” I said as I tried to figure out why he mentioned this.

“Shit, Harris! You’re supposed to be bright.” Huang no longer looked tired or disappointed. Now he looked disgusted. His eyes closed to slits. He put a hand to his temple, brushing aside the short brown hair.

I thought quickly. What was so important about eight minutes? It showed a certain level of efficiency. Whoever planned the attack had done a superb job combing out the logistics.

“Eight minutes, Harris. Eight, specking minutes. Eight minutes, the amount of time it takes GCF ships to power-up and self-broadcast. You couldn’t figure that out on your own? Judas in heaven, what did Klyber see in you?”

I wanted to tell Huang to speck himself, but I agreed with him. I should have seen it. I said nothing.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the video feed of the ground attack,” Huang said. “You haven’t seen this.”

Satellite video showing the surface of Gateway appeared in my mediaLink shades. The full name of the planet was Gateway Kri—the term kri designating that the planet had a terraformed atmosphere. In truth, the planet looked a lot like Earth with icy poles, large oceans, and green continents.

The screen flashed as lightning danced across the scene. I saw the four battleships from the Galactic Central Fleet only as silhouettes against the glowing surface of the planet. Their hulls looked black as coal. They were shadows. Had the satellite not been orbiting above them, they would have been invisible against the backdrop of space. From this perspective, the ships looked like giant sharks circling their territory.

The ships had a deformed diamond shape. They were long, not wide, with blunted corners at their bow and stern. They dove down to the edge of the atmosphere and green dots flashed on the surface as the Marines down below fired cannons at them.

“Concentrated firepower, the mark of a well-trained commander,” Huang said. “All of their laser fire hit within a five-block radius. Whoever led this assault knew his tactics.”

In the bottom corner of the screen, a small window showed the Gateway outpost. Laser blasts rained down on the fort and the streets surrounding it. As the attack began, the cannons along the walls of the fort flashed like strobe lights. That cannon fire slowed as hit after hit tore into the walls of the fort.

“Now this is interesting,” Huang said. “The GCF ships appeared one minute ago to the second. In that minute, the Marine base has focused all of its weapons on the capital ships …standard procedure.”

The screen froze. What I saw was one flame. It looked no more significant than a firefly as it penetrated the atmosphere.

“That is the transport. It will take that transport precisely one minute to land.”

The little flame seemed to shrink to nothing as the transport raced down to the planet. In the small window on my screen, New Gibraltar wilted quickly. The invading ground force stormed the fort, then ran off. At six minutes, to the second, the bombs went off creating a bubble of white light that seemed to grow like a blister out of the side of the planet. The flash was clearly visible from space.