Steven Kent - Rogue Clone

The muzzle of a gun jabbed into my back and a voice said, “How do you like that, boys, we have our first prisoner.”

If there was one kind of naval design that did not change with the times, it was brig. I once ran security for the Doctrinaire , the most advanced ship ever made. I knew every cell in its brig thoroughly, and they were exactly like the cells in this ancient ship …the one in which I was now a prisoner. Both brigs had the same kinds of bars on their walls and the same limp mats on their cots. I did not have the means to measure my floor, but if I did, it would have measured precisely eight feet by twelve feet. I knew that because that was the size of the cells on the Doctrinaire .

I lay on my cot staring up at the charcoal-gray ceiling. For a change of scenery, I sometimes turned to look at the charcoal-gray walls. These cells were the ultimate in ease when it came to housekeeping. You simply pulled the mattress out and sprayed everything down with a steam hose. The floor was a grating that led to a drain.

Mercifully, they had stripped me down to my briefs before throwing me in the cell. Those coveralls reeked. From what I could tell, the late Derrick Hines hadn’t washed them for weeks. I might have been a bit cold in this cell, but at least I could breathe.

Had the brig been darker, I might have slept. The lights in the hall were too bright.

I think I knew why Liberators got addicted to violence, we became morose when we just laid around. I thought about the diary from Saint Germaine in which that priest and Tabor Shannon argued about whether or not Liberators had souls. I bought into both arguments and decided that perhaps we had worthless souls. I thought about Freeman. Had he arrived in Safe Harbor yet? I wondered about his family on Little Man. What would the Navy do?

Forced to guess how long I had been in this cell, I might have said three hours. It could have been longer. It could have been shorter. With no sun coming up and no events by which to gauge time, my internal clock was all but useless.

Footsteps echoed down the hall as the men came to look in my cell. My jailors looked in on me through the bars. Both men wore khaki uniforms. One was a tall man with blond hair, the other had dark brown locks.

“Hello, Harris,” the blond man said.

I glanced in their direction. I remained flat on my back on the cot. I wanted to test them. I was their first prisoner. Would they know how to treat me and how to control me, or would they make mistakes? If they were naïve enough, I could end up in charge even though I was the one behind the bars.

“Comfortable, Harris?” the blond man asked.

“Hope you didn’t go to too much trouble getting my name,” I said.“ I would have told you if you had asked.”

“Really? I always heard that Liberator clones were tougher than that,” the blond man said. “You knew you were a clone, right? I mean, I would hate for you to have one of those death reflex things and keel over right here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“So you’re a Liberator. I always thought your kind would be bigger. I mean, aren’t you guys the planet exterminators?”

I looked toward the man. “You must be a Mogat,” I said in as dismissive a voice as I could muster.

“The term is Morgan Atkins Believer. I suggest you remember that, Harris, or your stay here could become real unpleasant.” The humor never left his face, but his voice turned serious.

Now that I stopped to look, I saw that this was not a man to take lightly. He had a broad and powerful build. His bull neck was almost as wide as his jaw, making it look like he had a pointed head. The muscles in his shoulders bulged, but this was not the beautiful physique of a bodybuilder. This man had padding around his gut.

“Learn anything else?” I asked.

The second man outside my cell, a short chubby man with the brown hair, stepped forward with a data pad and answered. “Harris, Wayson, Colonel, Unified Authority Marines. Raised: U.A. Orphanage # five hundred fifty-three. Year of Manufacture: 2490. Clone Class: Liberator.

“How does a clone, especially a Liberator Clone, achieve the rank of colonel?” the dark-haired man asked.

“You want to know how I became a colonel?” I asked.

“I want to know why you exist at all,” the man said. “How did you find your way on this ship?”

“Do you want the full story or the abbreviated version?” With this I sat up.

“Let’s stick with the short one for now,” the man with the data pad said.

“I caught a ride on your transport when it left New Columbia.”

The blond-haired man, clearly my jailor, smiled and gave me a vigorous nod. “Know what Harris, I believe you. An honest clone, no less.”

“May I ask a question?”

“Go ahead,” the man with the data pad said. The jailor scowled at him.

“Is this ship part of the Hinode Fleet, or part of the Confederate Navy, or part of the Galactic Central Fleet?”

“None of your business,” the man with the blond hair said.

“Confederate Navy,” the man with the dark hair said. The bigger man, the jailor, scowled at him.

“It depends who you ask, I suppose,” the blond man continued to glare down at him.

“So what is the Hinode Fleet?”

“Another name for the same bunch of ships,” the smaller man said.

“Do you have more than one fleet?” I asked.

“No,” the man admitted.

“Shut up,” the jailor snapped.

“He’s in jail, Sam, and he’s down to his skivvies. How is he going to tell anyone?” Then the man seemed to think twice about this before adding, “We will ask the questions from here on out, Harris. We have not decided what to do with you yet. I suggest you conduct yourself properly. Execution is not out of the question.”

They left me in my cell with nothing to do and no way of knowing how much time passed. I laid on the cot in my underwear staring at the ceiling and tried to piece together all of the little fragments of information I had collected. It seemed like the separatists had a genuine Power Struggle on their hands. They had an alliance, but all three sides were claiming the Navy for themselves.

Why did the Japanese officers wear different uniforms than the other men? Did the Mogats consider themselves part of the Confederate Arms? Did the Japanese? My thoughts drifted and I fell asleep.

“I knew it was you the moment I heard they had a prisoner.” “Smiling” Tom Halverson, my nickname for him, stood outside my cell looking dapper in his dress whites, with the three gold stripes of a full admiral on his shoulder boards. He’d cut his graying hair into a flattop, but otherwise he looked no different than the first time I saw him, on the bridge of the Doctrinaire . “Hello, Harris.”

“Get specked,” I said.

“Watch yourself, clone.” Sam, my blond-haired jailor, warned me. Whenever people visited me, Sam accompanied them.

“That’s all right, Sergeant. Colonel Harris and I are old acquaintances,” Halverson said. “Is that why you’re here, Harris? Did you come for me?”

I did not respond.

“No comment, Harris? That doesn’t sound good.”

“The admiral asked you a question,” Sam said in his most menacing voice.

“That’s all right, Sergeant,” Halverson said.

“You know, Harris, you really are amazing. The rest of them can’t even locate our ships and you turn up on one of them. It’s a good thing the Unified Authority doesn’t have one hundred more of you. Of course if they want to win the war they can make more of you. But then, I get the feeling that all you want is a little revenge.”

“Why did you kill him?” I asked, propping myself up to look at Halverson. “You and Klyber were friends.”