Steven Kent - Rogue Clone

The night was cool, her hands were warm. She rested her body against mine. This night might be the night, I thought to myself. She had that kind of sparkle in her eye.

“It’s a thousand miles away,” I said. “You might not even spot it with a telescope. It’s too small and too far away.”

“Are you scared?” Caleb asked me. He did not know the details, but he knew we planned to attack.

“No,” I said. Then I thought about it. “Yes. Yes I’m scared. But this is not the first time I’ve been scared. And I don’t think this is the most dangerous thing that I’ve ever done.”

The water rushing down the river made a cool, crisp churning noise. The sound conjured old images in my head. I thought of Tabor Shannon and Bryce Klyber, friends who had died. I thought of Klein, the clumsy one-handed assassin who tried to shoot Vince Lee because Freeman talked him into wearing my helmet.

The air was cool and the fresh scent of pine carried in the breeze. At that moment, I wanted to live on this planet with Marianne as my wife and Caleb as my son. It was the best offer anyone had given me.

“You have seven guns and a knife,” Caleb said. “And you’re going to attack forty Marines in combat armor. I’d be scared.”

“ Shhhh ,” Marianne said. “Someone could be listening out there.”

“You ever heard of David and Goliath?” Caleb asked.

“Yes, I’ve heard of David and Goliath,” I said. “Goliath was the giant and David was the shepherd king.”

“It’s from the Bible,” Caleb said.

“So I hear.”

“Just making sure,” the boy said.

“Christ is from the Bible, too,” I said. “I’ve heard of him as well.”

“Anyway,” Caleb said, ignoring my comment, “You guys going against those Marines, that’s kind of like David fighting Goliath.”

“I wish it was that easy,” I said.

“Easy?” Caleb picked up a stone and tossed it into the water. “Goliath could have killed any man.”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” I said. “King David was never in danger. Every Goliath has a weakness. David just knew what it was.”

“He knew Goliath’s weakness,” Caleb repeated. “Man, that’s smart.”

Sure it was smart , I thought, I was a synthetic Bible scholar .

A few minutes later, Marianne took Caleb to sleep in the Starliner. Archie was in the ship. He was the man with the grenade, just in case Lee’s men came before we got to them.

I sat alone on the river bank thinking about Marianne. I imagined taking off her clothes and feeling her warm body. I imagined her lying down with her long hair forming a sheet beneath her back. My body responded to the fantasy.

When Marianne returned, she walked slowly. I could see her clearly in the moonlight. Her skin was smooth. Her eyes remained on mine. She seemed to catch the moonlight in her hair. Without saying a word, she sat beside me and pressed her mouth against mine. She was breathing hard now. The kiss was warm and wet. I reached through her hair, wrapped my hand around her head, and held her close.

It happens like this , I thought to myself. Just like this .

The kiss ended and she pulled her face a few inches from mine. “Wayson,” she whispered.

I could have had her on that night. Instead, I stood to leave. “I love you,” I said, “but I cannot do this. I cannot stay on this planet, and you’re looking for someone who will stay.”

“It’s all right, Wayson,” she said, taking my hand. “I know and I understand.”

By this time, I had already made up my mind, and the mood was gone.

I could have made love to her that night. I should have made love to her that night. As things turned out, we would never make love.

Ray Freeman crawled forward on his stomach, brought up his sniper scope, and checked on the guards. The scope had night-for-day vision and powerful magnification. The guards were 300 yards away, but that hardly mattered. Using Freeman’s scope, I could have counted the hairs on their heads.

Of the twenty-three combat-aged men, we only brought twenty with us. One was too scared. We left two to guard the camp in case we never returned.

We hid along the edge of that primal forest. We heard the scratch of tiny animals running among the branches overhead and the occasional howl of something larger marching upon the forest floor, but we never saw anything creeping or climbing. These woods were dark in the sunlight and black in the night.

“Have a look at this,” Freeman said.

Two Marines guarded the clearing sitting on a log. They did not have a fire. They did not need one. The night-for-day lenses in their helmets gave them better vision than a fire could ever offer. The ventilation in their bodysuits kept their environment a comfortable 75 degrees.

I lay down on the ground beside Freeman and shifted my weight so that I could peer through the scope. In the distance, the sun had just begun to rise, and that part of the sky was a rich blue. Behind the sentinels, the kettle door was open, and I could peer up the ramp and see the Marines milling about inside.

White light blazed within the kettle. Most of the men inside it wore their body armor, with their helmets off. Then I saw him. A man in a medic’s uniform walked around the kettle distributing plastic cups. The men drank the content out of these cups then crumbled them up.

“This looks promising,” I said.

The medic walked out to the guards and handed them cups. They emptied the little cups like shot glasses, snapping their heads backwards and spilling the liquid into their mouths.

I handed the rifle back to Freeman and knelt beside him. “Give the medicine a few minutes to take,” I said.

We could not use the particle beam pistols because we could not risk damaging the transport. That left us with my two M27s, Freeman’s pistol, and my oversized combat knife. I thought about the knife that Hollywood Harris used in The Battle for Little Man and smirked.

“Get in position,” Ray said. “I’ll wait for your signal.” I nodded and took five men with me. I brought these elders along as scavengers. They would take weapons off the bodies that Ray and I left behind.

We moved just inside the tree line, crouching, stealing behind thick trunks. When we stopped at one tree, the guards were no more than fifty feet away. They sat slumped on their fallen log. Their helmets were off, so I could see that they were not speaking to each other.

I handed an M27 to one of the elders, a young man who would have looked athletic had he not been so skinny. Then I told all five of them to stay behind the tree.

Things move slowly when you begin stealth missions. Nothing ruins stealth like impatience. I might have taken those five men with me, but when the adrenaline starts to flow, beginners become impatient.

Moving slowly, taking long, shallow breaths that made no sound, I came within twenty feet of the guards. They sat on their makeshift bench, their eyes staring straight out without blinking. Their hands hung down by their sides. They were not comatose exactly, but they were strung out. One of them turned and looked in my direction. I was pretty well hidden between some ferns and a tree trunk. He would have seen me if he had his helmet on and might have seen me anyway, but he showed no reaction. His brown eyes seemed unfocused and his jaw hung open.

I pointed my forefinger straight up in the air, then brought it down as if aiming a pistol and pointed at the guards. The report of Freeman’s rifle was no louder than a man spitting, but it scared two large black birds that had settled a few feet away. The first bullet tore through a guard’s head, blowing off his ear and most of his forehead. The man fell off the log. The other guard fell a moment later. Neither man made a sound as they died, but their armor rattled as it struck the ground. The log blocked my view of the bodies, but a puddle of blood spread into view.