Steven Kent - The Clone Republic

“What a coincidence,” I said, not believing a word of it. “Both me and your target came to the same planet.”

I took off my helmet and took a long drag of beer. “Are you still looking for Crowley?”

“I have a score to settle,” Freeman said, “but that is not why I am here. I bumped into another friend of yours from Gobi earlier today. In fact, he’s staying in the hotel across the street.”

“Really?” I said. I took another drink, nearly finishing my beer. “Who is it?” Names and faces passed through my mind.

“I was hoping to surprise the both of you,” Freeman said. “You know what would be funny, you and Vince can trade helmets, and we can surprise the guy. You know, so you don’t have that identifier …just in case he’s wearing his helmet.”

Lee and I looked at each other. As far as I knew, the only people in Rising Sun with combat helmets flew in on the Kamehameha . Freeman had some scheme in the works, but I could not think what it might be, and I did not trust him.

“That doesn’t sound like such a good idea,” I said.

“Nothing is going to happen to you, Wayson,” Freeman said, sounding slightly wounded. “It will be fun.”

“Who are we surprising?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t want me to spoil the surprise.”

“I don’t mind trading,” Lee offered.

“Tell you what,” Freeman said. He dug through his wallet and pulled out a bill. “It’s worth twenty bucks to me to have you guys trade helmets.”

“I don’t know about this,” I said. The more Freeman tried to act breezy and conversational, the more ghoulish he sounded. I wanted to warn Lee over the interLink, but he had removed his helmet.

“You still don’t trust me?” Freeman said.

“Twenty dollars?” Lee asked. He gulped down his beer. “What can it hurt?”

“Thanks,” Freeman said, sounding pleased. “I’ll pick up your next round, too.”

“Don’t worry about it, Harris,” Lee said. “I’ll just head back with the rest of the platoon.”

Lee’s hanging back with the platoon sounded good to me. I could not think of any reason why Freeman might want to hurt Lee, but I still did not trust him.

Lee grabbed my helmet, and I took his.

“Look, Wayson, I need to pay the check. Why don’t you head across the street, and I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby.”

I took one last look at Lee, then put on his helmet. “Damn,” I whispered. Whatever he’d eaten for lunch had left a foul-smelling ghost in his rebreather. I got up from the bar and walked toward the door. Shannon and a few other soldiers waved as I left.

The street was completely empty by that time. I checked for cars, then trotted across the street to the hotel.

The outside of the hotel was built out of that same thick crystal—very likely an indigenous mineral of some kind. The lobby, however, was not so elegant. Poorly lit and cheaply decorated, it had metal furniture and a scuffed-up check-in desk. The unshaved clerk at the desk watched me as I entered the lobby, but said nothing.

“Let’s go,” Freeman said as he joined me a few moments later. He no longer smiled or wanted to talk, that was the Freeman I knew.

“So who are we here to see?” I asked.

He did not answer.

“Is it Crowley?” I asked.

“Not Crowley,” Freeman said.

Rather than take the elevator, Freeman ran up the stairs. We entered a dimly lit stairwell and climbed twelve flights. “You’re still charming as ever,” I said, as we reached the top.

Freeman pulled his handheld computer from his pocket and looked at it. “Hurry,” he said. “Your pals are getting ready to leave the bar.” He held the monitor so that I could see it. Apparently he had placed a remote camera under his seat. Looking at the monitor, I saw Shannon standing up. Some of the other men were already wearing their helmets and heading for the door.

We entered a red-carpeted hall with numbered doors. Freeman stopped under a hall light. He pulled a pistol from under his chestplate. He walked to room number 624. Pulling a key chip from his pocket, Freeman unlocked the door and let it slide open.

The only light in the room came from the glare of the street outside. We crept along the wall. We had entered a suite. Freeman pointed toward a bedroom door, and I stole forward to peer inside.

Looking across the room, I saw the pale moon through the top of a window. Someone was crouching beside that window, spying the street. I could only see his thick silhouette. In this dim light, he did not look human.

“He’s watching the bar door,” I whispered inside my helmet.

Using his right hand, the man brought up a rifle with a barrel-shaped scope. I had used a similar scope in training camp. It was an “intelligent” scope, the kind of computerized aiming device that offers more than simple magnification. “He’s looking for…”

Then I understood. I sprang forward. Hearing my approach, the sniper turned around and started to raise his rifle. By that time, I had leaped most of the way across the room. I grabbed the rifle, spun it over my right hand, and stabbed the butt into the assassin’s face. The man made an agonized scream and dropped to the floor.

I removed my helmet and went to the window. Raising the rifle, I looked down at the street through the scope. Most of the men from the platoon stood outside the door of the bar. The intelligent scope had an auto-action switch set to fire. The scope read the identifier signals from our helmets. The scope would locate a preset target, and the rifle would shoot automatically. In the center of the pack, Corporal Vincent Lee was clearly identified as Corporal Wayson Harris— me. The scope made a soft humming noise as it automatically homed in on my helmet.

“You owe me twenty bucks, Harris,” Freeman said as he switched on the lights.

Lying dazed on the floor, the sniper moaned. One of his eyes was already starting to swell from the impact of the rifle, and blood flowed from the bridge of his nose. He reached up to touch his wounded face, and I noticed that his arm ended in a stub.

“Well, hello, Kline,” I said.

Ray Freeman trusted the Rising Sun police enough to let them put Kline in a holding cell, but he insisted on watching that cell until military police signed for the prisoner. Freeman’s wait would have been none of my business except that Captain McKay ordered me to remain with Kline until the MPs arrived as well. So the station captain placed a couple of chairs near Kline’s cell and told us to make ourselves at home.

For me, making myself “at home” meant removing my helmet. Freeman made himself at home by pulling out a twelve-inch knife that he had somehow slipped past station security and cleaning his fingernails. The knife looked deceptively small in Freeman’s large hands.

Admiral Klyber arrived with an intelligence officer as the first traces of sunrise shone through the wire-enforced windows. I jumped out of my chair and saluted, but Freeman remained seated. A slight smile played across Klyber’s lips as he regarded us. He returned my salute, and said the perfunctory, “At ease, Corporal.”

I was technically out of uniform. Looking down at my helmet, and feeling guilty, I said, “Sorry, sir.”

“Not at all, Corporal. As I understand it, you caught the prisoner while you were off duty.” Klyber then turned to face

Ray Freeman. “I understand you were instrumental as well.”

Freeman said nothing.

“Sir,” I said, not wanting to contradict the senior-most officer in this part of the galaxy, but determined to set the record straight.

Klyber interrupted me. “This is Lieutenant Niles, from Naval Intelligence.”