Steven Kent - The Clone Republic

“The lieutenant’s recon robot, sir.”

“You threatened to shoot his robot?” McKay asked. There was a tremble in his voice, and I heard other officers laughing in the background. “Threatening Scooter is a serious offense, Sergeant. You may be looking at a long stay in the brig.”

“Not meaning any disrespect, Captain, we need to settle that account later. I believe I have found a way to force the enemy to surrender.”

“I’m listening, Sergeant.” Gaylan McKay had an unnerving ability to read unspoken nuances in any conversation. “What have you got?”

My interLink connection went silent. Shannon might have wanted me to hear him call Captain McKay, but the fine details would be on a “need to know” basis.

For the first time since I repeated the oath, I felt the weight and isolation of my armor. It wasn’t that I cared about the plan. I cared about Shannon. I suddenly realized that Tabor Shannon, master gunnery sergeant and Liberator, was the closest thing I would ever have to family. Suddenly I felt cut off, trapped inside my helmet. I listened to the rhythmic hiss of my breathing. I became aware of claustrophobia causing my nerves to tingle. Strangest of all, I still felt glad to be a Marine fighting on Hubble. “God, what a mess,” I said quietly as I considered my situation—a clone on a toxic planet fighting to protect the government that created him, then outlawed his existence.

“Harris, we’re going in,” Sergeant Shannon said, waking me from my momentary epiphany.

“How many of us?” I asked.

“This time it’s just you and me, Corporal.” Shannon switched to an open frequency. “Lee, you’re in charge. Harris and I are going to do a little spelunking.”

“You might want to leave the rifle stock behind,” Shannon said, as we started for the cave. Not waiting for an explanation, I detached the stock and left it with Lee.

Shannon stepped into the cave and stopped to wait for me. His armor was coated with ash, but his visor was clean. “You should give your visor a quick wipe,” he said. “You might not get a chance to do that later.”

I pulled the swatch of cloth from my belt and wiped the glass carefully. As I entered the cave, I saw the bodies of the men Shannon and Lee had cut down. Two sat slumped against the walls as if resting, the others lay on the ground. One had died clutching his mask. If the gunfire didn’t get you on Hubble, the atmosphere would.

Shannon waited for me to get a few steps closer, then drew his particle-beam pistol and pointed it at the wall. “I want to show you something,” he said, and he fired a bright green bolt into the shiny black rock. The bolt bored into the wall of the cave. Slag and vapor poured out of the hole.

“Recognize it?” Shannon asked me.

“It’s the shit from the trenches,” I said.

“It’s like being in an iceberg,” Shannon said. “Make too much heat, and you will bring the whole damned cliff down.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “The rock melts into vapor?”

“It’s the other way around, the vapor hardens into rock,” Shannon said. “The vapor gets cold and hardens. That’s why the rock looks so shiny; it’s just hardened gas.”

“Now you’re a geologist?” I asked.

“Don’t get smart, asshole,” Shannon said. “Like I said before, I saw shit like this in the Galactic Center War. Since Liberators and Mogats are the only people who were at that little rumble, you can bet they know about it, too.

“Harris, I don’t suppose the good lieutenant uploaded Scooter’s data to you?”

I scanned for beacons, and a thin red line appeared on my visor marking the robot’s path. There was nothing wrong with Scooter’s self-preservation programming. The little robot had explored the caves hidden from danger by traveling in a groove along one of the walls. No wonder the Mogats had walked by the little rodent without seeing it. “Okay, I can read his beacon trail.”

“That’s good. If we get split, you’ll need to find your way out on your own.” Shannon started forward along Scooter’s virtual trail. “You know those machines Scooter passed? Did you recognize them?”

I did not recognize the first machine, though it had looked familiar. I did recognize the second device. “The one on the left was a power generator,” I said. “You planning on turning out the lights?”

“We’re going to do a lot more than that,” Shannon said. “The bigger machine is an oxy-gen.” The term “oxy-gen” was Marine-speak for oxygen genitor.

“I don’t think they know we took out the guys guarding this gate. As long as they didn’t see Scooter, we should be able to slip up to the generators without too much trouble. I brought you along just in case, Harris. You get to run interference for me.”

The ground, the air, and the walls in the cave were all shades of black. I had no sense of depth. Running my elbow against the wall as I walked helped me balance myself, but I constantly felt as if I might bump my head against one of the boulders that bulged from the low ceiling.

The Mogats had it worse than us, though. Not wanting to leave a telltale trail, they did not string lights along the cave. They had to find their way in and out using lanterns and flashlights. If guards came anywhere near us, Shannon and I would see the glare from their lights.

We walked softly, barely lifting our feet and hugging the wall with our backs. Though the darkness in the tunnel meant that we were alone, we kept our pistols drawn.

The path had an almost imperceivable downward slope. It bent and meandered around thick knots in the rock, and continued on its gentle incline, always downward, constantly downward. We moved through one long, straight stretch. When I looked behind me, it looked like the floor and the ceiling had merged. Seeing it left me momentarily dizzy, then I realized that the illusion was caused by my faltering sense of depth.

“Something the matter, Harris?” Shannon grunted.

“I’m fine,” I said.

We would have lost our way in these caverns had it not been for Scooter’s beacons. When I watched the monitor, I had not noticed how many capillaries led from the main path. The path curved around one wall, then another. It split and sometimes seemed to disappear entirely behind sharp bends. More than an hour passed before we rounded a corner and saw the first traces of light. “This is where it gets tricky,” Shannon said. “Scooter was just ahead of us when it ran into the first guards.”

Shannon stopped, and we knelt behind a rock to talk. “This tunnel leads to Mogat-central. Got it? The shaft with the generators is somewhere between us and them. That shaft is only big enough for one of us, Harris, so you’re on watch while I speck with their equipment. Any questions?”

The cave was absolutely silent. Far ahead, I could see an odd-shaped circle of light. Its distorted reflection on the obsidian walls might have extended for hundreds of yards. My heart thudded hard in my chest, but the endorphins had not yet begun to flow.

“Once I’m through screwing with the equipment, I’m going to give you a signal, and you are going to run like your shitter’s on fire. Don’t wait for me. Just run, and I will catch up to you.”

“You’ll be cut off,” I said.

“I’m getting out the same way Scooter did. This side tunnel loops back into the main cavern. I’ll crawl through and catch up with you.”

In the darkness, I could barely make out the shape of Shannon’s green armor. His helmet looked like a shadow cast on those charcoal-colored walls.

“Sergeant?”

“What is it, Harris?”

“Why did you bring me? I’ve got less combat experience than anyone else in the platoon.”