Steven Kent - Rogue Clone

“That’s bad news,” Archie said.

“Vince doesn’t think much of your son, either,” I said looking over at Ray. He must have known what was coming, but he did not so much as blink. “The last time they met, Ray paid Vince twenty dollars to put on my combat armor.”

“I don’t understand,” Archie said.

“Ray told him he wanted to play a joke on a mutual friend by having me wear somebody else’s combat armor. Only it wasn’t a friend, it was an assassin. There was a man hoping to shoot me. Ray used Vince as a decoy while we snuck into a building and caught the bastard.”

Archie took in these words, then brightened. “But you didn’t step out of the ship when those Marines were here, Raymond. He won’t know you are part of this.”

Freeman pointed to the cola-colored skin on the back of his hand. “He’ll figure it out.”

Most of the day passed and we still had not seen Vince Lee. He may have thought that making us wait would give him a psychological advantage. That was what I thought he had in mind until I saw Lee in person.

His invasion force had come in the dead of night. It was early evening when Lee’s transport first appeared in the sky. By that time, many of the congregation had given up on him. The women toiled in an already-cleared field with hoes. Men cut down trees with saws and axes. Ray’s mother, a woman in her late fifties with long pearly hair, taught the children math, reading, and religion by the dregs of the bonfire.

I was in the cockpit mulling over my options and feeling guilty about relaxing while everyone else toiled. When I glanced over at the navigational computer, I spotted the transport.

“He’s coming,” I called to Ray. “One ship, headed straight for us.”

“Think he’ll be reasonable?” Freeman asked, preparing the grenade and stashing a few pistols around the back of the cabin.

“Archie would love Vince Lee,” I said. “Lee was the most anti-synthetic clone I ever met. I think he suspected he was a clone. He protected himself from the death reflex by hating other clones.”

“Any chance we could just say, ‘Lee, you’re a clone,’ and kill him off?” Freeman asked.

“Maybe we could start a chain reaction?” I said, only half joking. This idea might have had a shot at working. If we could convince enough of Vince’s Marines that they were clones, maybe we could start a mass death reflex. If one clone believed, maybe they all would. The glands in their brains would secrete their deadly hormone, and the whole crew might die. Maybe we did have a weapon, if enough of them were watching.

One minute later, a silver-gray speck appeared in the blue, cloudless sky. For a moment it looked like an apparition, perhaps the sun reflecting off of a cloud. The transport continued to drop. When we first saw it, the ship may have been twenty miles up and far off in the icy blue horizon. It dropped out of the sky and flew over the forest, and then seemed to float over the camp. All work stopped. The men and women dropped what they were doing and gathered in a group.

I ran down the hatch and gathered Marianne and Caleb. “Wait on the ship,” I said. “You’ll be safer there.”

Marianne nodded. She looked more unhappy than scared. Her forehead was creased with lines, her lips were tight, and her eyes had pleading intensity. Without saying a word, she nodded and turned to the Starliner. Her hands remained on Caleb’s shoulders. She kept her hands on him as they ran to the ship.

I rushed through the crowd and found Archie and his wife standing near the fire pit. “You’d better come with me,” I said. He followed without a word.

Transports were large, clumsy birds, with bloated bellies designed for carrying soldiers. They had powerful shields, thick armor, and nearly indestructible engines, but no guns.

The transport landed in a field in which some women had been planting seeds. First the thruster engines fired to soften the landing. They emitted fiery-hot plumes that baked the soil as the transport rotated in midair so that its ass end pointed toward the camp.

The plumes from the engines dusted over two hoes that were left in the field, lighting their handles on fire. Then the ship settled on its heavy iron skids, packing dirt beneath it. The ship must have weighed thirty tons. Seeing her work ruined, one woman buried her face in her husband’s shoulder and cried.

By the time the ship landed, I had returned to the Starliner. I sent Archie and his wife, Marianne, and Caleb into the very back of the passenger cabin. Turning the other way, I joined Ray in the cockpit to watch.

The rear hatch of the transport opened with a mechanical yawn that reminded me of my past. Out came eight Marines in blood-red combat armor. Government-issue combat armor came in one color: camouflage green. The red armor made no sense. They must have painted it red, but why? Then I remembered the Mogats during the battle for Little Man. They had worn red armor. Lee was emulating the superior forces.

Someone had stenciled THE KING OF CLONES in gold letters above the ramp that led out of the kettle.

I watched this from inside the cockpit with Ray Freeman. “Guess he figured out he’s a clone,” I said.

“You ever get tired of being wrong?” Freeman asked.

The eight men in the red combat gear formed lines on either side of the ramp, their M27s held tight across their chests. Next came the entourage, twenty men in officer uniforms who formed a line at the base of the ramp. As far as I knew, only seven clones had ever been bootstrapped to officer status, and only one of them served in the Scutum-Crux Fleet. But here they were, twenty men with the exact same face, skin, and hair, standing in a perfect row, all dressed as officers.

This ceremonial offloading had a familiar ring. I thought about it for a moment and remembered the way Klyber and his entourage disembarked the time that Lee and I accompanied them as their honor guard.

Last came Vince Lee, dressed in a general’s uniform. He could not have been a general, of course. He stood at the top of the ramp, his bottom lip pursed, his eyes squinting, and surveyed the lines of men before him. Then, walking in a slow, magisterial gait, Lee proceeded down the ramp. It had to be a joke, but I was too afraid to laugh.

The men and women around the camp looked too stunned to speak. One man fell to his knees as if praying, but his eyes were wide open. His wife stood beside him, trying to pull him to his feet. The man ignored her.

One of the men in Lee’s honor guard climbed into the Starliner and shouted, “General on deck!”

Freeman shot him. His body slid down the ramp and landed just about where the other three bodies had landed. Lee looked down at the dead man with a bemused expression.

“I don’t remember inviting anyone to come aboard,” I yelled.

Lee smiled, nodded to his guard, and started up the ramp. “Permission to come aboard?” he yelled. He had a sardonic tone.

“You know what, Lee,” I answered, “I think I’ll meet you down there. I could use a little fresh air.”

Ray, pulling the pin from a grenade, sat down in the copilot’s seat. I walked across the cabin and said, “Archie, do you want to come with me?”

He nodded and we headed down the ramp.

The Vince Lee I knew would never have let his hair grow beyond regulation. He was the ideal image of a Marine with his powerful physique. The man was fanatical about bodybuilding, and not just bodybuilding, but old-style weightlifting.

As Archie and I came down the ramp, I saw the new Vince Lee. This man had hair over the tops of his ears. He had the same glassy-eyed look as the Marine who led the raid. He also had the same recently-starved look about his face. His skin was sallow. He had large dark pockets under the eyes. He also had a few days’ stubble on his cheeks.