Steven Kent - The Clone Republic

Without looking up, McKay added, “Send in Corporal Lee.”

Until Amos Crowley’s visit, the U.A. Marines maintained Gobi Station with forty-one men, one man shy of a full platoon. The bowels of the Kamehameha housed two full divisions of Marines—over twenty-three hundred of the Republic’s finest.

Bryce Klyber’s authority extended beyond the ship and even the fleet; every unit in the Scutum-Crux Arm was under his command. He was the only officer in the U.A. Navy to hold the rank of fleet admiral, a rank generally reserved for wartime.

Captain Thaddeus Olivera commanded the Kamehameha, and Vice Admiral Absalom Barry commanded the Outer Scutum-Crux Fleet. Klyber, who I soon learned was a notorious microcommander, preferred to work out of an office on the ship so that he could observe operations firsthand.

There were three fleets in the Scutum-Crux Arm, placing more than one thousand ships, more ships than the Earth Fleet, under Klyber’s command. That did not mean he could stage a revolution. Unlike Caesar, crossing the Rubicon line as he brought his forces into Rome, Klyber would never be able to bring his fleet to Earth. Klyber’s Rubicon was the Mars discs of the Broadcast Corridor, which were too small to receive or send capital ships such as fighter carriers and destroyers. The Broadcast Corridor ensured that Klyber’s ships remained in place. Without the discs, it would take a thousand lifetimes to fly from Scutum-Crux to the Sol System in the Orion Arm.

The documentation McKay gave me described the protocol and command structure of the Outer SC Fleet. Most of the information was standard procedure, but I needed to relearn standard procedures and chain of command after three months on Gobi. Judging by the way Klyber ran the Scutum-Crux territories, he was the kind of commander who required his subordinates to march to his own drum.

As a young Marine, I did not know much about Navy workings. It struck me as odd that Klyber, supposedly a powerful admiral, retained an old ship like the Kamehameha for his flagship. The Kamehameha might have worked well as Klyber’s movable command post, but it was obsolete as a fighter carrier. Klyber built each of his three fleets around a core of twelve fighter carriers. The Kamehameha was an old Expansion-class carrier, the only carrier of its class that was still in operation. All of the other carriers were Perseus-class, a newer breed of brute measuring forty-five hundred feet long and almost fifty-one hundred feet wide—nearly twice as long as their Expansion-class predecessors. Perseus-class carriers bore a complement of eleven thousand Marines, five times the fighting force that traveled on the Kamehameha . Perseus-class carriers stowed three times more tanks, transports, gunships, and fighters than Expansion-class carriers and had much quicker means for deploying units.

Lee and I spent our first night in half-empty barracks. Ten of the men assigned to our platoon had trickled in throughout the day, but most of the racks remained empty. Huddled in my bunk, I quietly read Scutum-Crux Fleet documentation well into the sleep period. Along with command structure and regulations, the documentation also laid out our daily regiment. Klyber expected his grunts to drill three hours per day, holding physical training, marksmanship drills, and practical simulations into the daily routine. After reading these daily requirements I sighed, and whispered, “Harris, you’re a long, long way from Gobi.”

Lee, laid out on the bunk next to mine, rolled to face me, and asked, “Wayson, what are you doing?”

“Reading regs,” I said. “You finished reading already?”

“I don’t need to read them,” Lee said. “We had the exact same regulations at my last post. I was already under Klyber’s command.”

Travel had warped my internal timetable. Late as it was, I did not have a prayer of falling asleep. “I think I’m still on Earth time,” I said, though I had no idea what time it might be back at the orphanage.

“I’m having trouble sleeping myself,” Lee admitted. He rolled over on his side and checked his wristwatch, then quietly cursed. “Tell you what, you want to go have a look around the ship?” he asked.

“We can do that?” I asked.

“Damn, Harris! You’re not in boot camp. Nobody cares what corporals do after hours,” Lee said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of his bunk.

“Boot camp wasn’t that long ago,” I admitted. “After basic I got sent to a planet called Gobi. Regulations didn’t matter much there. I don’t want to screw up.”

“Okay, on behalf of Fleet Admiral Klyber, I formally give you permission to climb out of your bunk. You may grab a bite to eat, visit the bar, or have a look around the ship. Just keep out of restricted areas,” Lee said as he pulled on his pants.

After numbing my brain with rules and command structure, the idea of a late-night walk sounded good. We got dressed and slipped out of the barracks. The ship had an eerie, abandoned feel to it. The hall lights burned as brightly as they did during the day, but the only footsteps we heard were mostly our own. I peered through the window of our chow area as we passed. The lights were turned low. Tables that had been crowded with Marines a few hours earlier now sat empty.

Our barracks and training areas were located amidships on one of the lower decks of the Kamehameha , not all that far from the docking bay. In the time that I had been on board, I had only seen the landing bay, the barracks, and the mess area. Lee, who had never served aboard that particular ship but had a working knowledge of carriers, had no problem conducting an impromptu tour.

We passed armories, a library, and file rooms—all populated with skeleton crews. At three in the morning, even the bars sat empty. Lee led me to an elevator, and we went up three floors to the crew area. “This area is not restricted, but don’t expect to spend much time up here,” Lee said, as we stepped off the lift. “Sailors think of us as cargo.”

It hadn’t taken me long to strike up a friendship with Lee. After Gobi, I was glad to meet a Marine who stowed his gear properly and cut his hair to regulation. Like the clones back in Orphanage #553, Lee had created his own kind of personality. He did not know he was a clone, of course; and he thought one day he might be bootstrapped into the ranks of the officers. From there, he wanted to enter politics.

It was hopeless, of course. He was a clone; and because the Unified Authority did not recognize the potential of its own synthetic creations, Lee would never be promoted past master sergeant.

Unlike our barracks, the crew area showed signs of life. Duty officers patrolled the halls. We passed a mess area that smelled of fried eggs and meat. I peered in the door and saw sailors hunched over trays. A little farther, we passed a rec room with game tables, card tables, and a bar. I saw the marquee of a movie theater along the back wall. At that early hour, the recreation center sat empty and dark, but I could imagine it filled with lights and sounds and people during the early evening.

“They have a movie theater in there,” I complained. “I’ll bet my next paycheck that our rec doesn’t have a theater.”

“That’s a good way to go bankrupt,” Lee said. “Congress spares no expense when it comes to keeping its Marines entertained.”

“You boys looking for something?” We turned around as a sailor approached us.

“We’re new on the ship,” Lee said. “Just having a look around.”

The sailor was a clone, a petty officer with a single red chevron on his sleeve. He bore no more authority than Lee or I; but we were on his turf. “You must be new. This here is the crew area. We stow Marines below,” he sneered. He grabbed Lee by the arm, then took a quick step back. Lee’s arms and chest were thick with muscle.