Steven Kent - The Clone Republic

The air was hot and dry. Since I was not wearing my climate-controlled bodysuit, the early evening felt like an oven. The sun started to set, and the sky above Morrowtown filled with crimson-and-orange clouds. The buildings, mostly two- and three-story sandstone structures, took on a particularly gloomy look in the dying daylight. Lights shone in some nearby windows. Freeman’s khaki-colored clothes looked gray in the growing darkness.

“How do you know Kline is hiding something?” I asked again.

“I’m not sure he is,” Freeman said. “I want to track him if he leaves town.”

“In case he goes to warn Crowley?” I asked.

Freeman did not answer.

“So that wasn’t a grenade? It was just a tracking device?” Suddenly Freeman seemed almost human. I laughed, remembering Kline’s terrified expression.

“No, that was a homemade grenade. I placed a radioactive tracking filament inside the glue.”

I did not see the point in gluing a grenade to Kline’s hand. I believed him when he said that he did not know anything.

Despite his lack of social skills, Freeman knew how to read people. Moments after we left the bar, Kline popped his head out of the door. He spotted us and jogged over, carefully cradling his left hand, the one with the grenade, as if he were holding an infant.

“You won’t leave Gobi?” Kline asked.

“Do you remember something?” I asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head but never taking his eyes off Freeman.

“I’ll be at the base,” Freeman said in his rumbling voice.

Freeman turned and walked toward the truck. I followed. “Do you think he is a spy of some sort?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t trust him,” Freeman said.

Freeman and I did not speak to each other during the drive back to base, but the silence did not bother me this time. He sat very still, his eyes forming sharp slits as he surveyed the moonlit landscape.

Perhaps I was slow. We were nearly back to Gobi Station before I realized that Freeman was looking for enemies. For all we knew, Crowley had an entire army on the planet, and he could easily ambush us on our way back to the fort. A lone soldier and a mercenary would not stand much of a chance in an ambush, but Freeman, well armed and always watchful, would not go down so easily.

If we drove past any enemies that night, they did not make a move. Except for the hollow cry of distant lizards scurrying along some far-off dune, I never saw any signs of life.

Gobi Station might have been the grandest building on the entire planet. Several times larger than any building in Morrowtown, the outpost had huge sandstone walls lined with columns and arches. A domed roof covered each corner of the structure. The first settlers on Gobi were probably Moslem—Gobi Station had a Moorish look about it. The outpost’s sturdy walls and thick ramparts made for a good fortress. The yellow light of our poorly powered lanterns poured out from the outpost’s arches and reflected on the gold-leafed domes. As we drove toward the motor pool, I felt warm relief in the pit of my stomach. We parked the truck, and I returned to my cell to sleep. Freeman headed toward Gutterwash Godfrey’s office. I suppose he wanted to report to Vice Admiral Brocius.

Taj Guttman met me at the door of the barracks. At night, he wore a long, white robe that he cinched with a belt around his gelatinous stomach. The belt looked equatorial. “What happened in town?”

“Not much,” I said, pulling off my shirt. I walked into my cell hoping to get away from Guttman. He followed. Trying to ignore him, I dropped my pants.

“Did you find Crowley?”

“No, but Freeman made quite an impression on Kline. That Freeman is a real prick. He glued a grenade to Kline’s hand.”

“He what?” Guttman sounded shocked. He made a whistling noise. “So do you think I’m going to get in trouble?”

“I don’t think Freeman cares about you. I don’t think he cares about anybody. Just stay out of his way. You’ll be okay unless he decides to shoot you.”

Kline had a secret, and Freeman must have figured it out. Working with subtle clues that escaped my attention, Freeman pieced that secret together and shared it only with Admiral Brocius, leaving the rest of us unprepared.

Looking back, I should have seen it coming. A stockpile of military-grade weapons in a tiny garrison would be too easy a prize for a struggling army of traitors to ignore. Judging by Guttman and the other men who went into town, Crowley would expect little resistance if he attacked Gobi Station. Who knew how long he had had our base under surveillance. He had probably known our numbers, might even have been watching when Ray Freeman landed. Freeman’s arrival probably worked like a catalyst, spurring Crowley to act sooner than he had intended.

Freeman knew that someone like General Crowley would not come to a backwater planet like Gobi for no reason. If Crowley was here and weapons were here, Crowley undoubtedly wanted the weapons. Freeman didn’t share this useful information, however, because he had come on a bounty-hunting expedition and wanted to capture Crowley. If he had warned us, we would have prepared for the attack and Crowley would have seen us mounting guns and sending out patrols. He might have tried to flee the planet, and Freeman did not want that. Freeman had sized up the situation and decided to offer up my platoon as bait.

Crowley made his move the following morning. It started with a single explosion that shattered the silence and shook the desert like cracking thunder. The explosion came from the north side of the base, rattling the outpost’s massive walls.

I jumped from my bed and looked out a window in time to see the last remnants of an enormous fireball dissolving into the sunrise. The bomb had demolished Ray Freeman’s ship, cutting off our only escape route and destroying our only hope of air support.

Silence followed.

For the next ten seconds, the Gobi desert returned to its peaceful self. A burned red sunrise filled the horizon as the echo of the explosion rolled across the desert. I felt the last of the evening breeze through my window as I turned to throw on my armor. It took me less than thirty seconds to slip on my armor and helmet. I snapped the rifle stock on my M27 and exited my cell. Rickman came running from his cell and the others followed, including Taj Guttman, with his helmet stuck to the top of his head like a hat.

Their armor still worked. The smart-lenses in my visor registered signals transmitted by the other Marines’ armor. When I looked at Rickman, Sarris, and Guttman, a computer in my helmet picked up signals from their armor and displayed their names and ranks in red letters. I heard several of the men asking questions over the interLink.

“What the hell was that?” Rickman shouted above the noise. Before I could tell Rickman about seeing the fireball, Sergeant Godfrey leaped down the stairs to join us.

“Everybody up top. Cover the entrances,” Godfrey yelled. He carried a particle-beam pistol in his hand and used it to point up the stairs. I could hear men hyperventilating as they ran up and realized that I was about to go to battle with men who no longer had soldiering in their blood.

As we reached the top of the barracks, a rocket struck just outside the arched entrance. A cloud of dust and smoke filled the open-air hallway leading to the main gate.

“I see them,” one man shouted, firing wildly through an outer window.

I looked over his shoulder, but did not see anything. Even when I scanned the area using the heat-vision lens in my visor, I saw nothing, though the smoke and flames from the explosion almost certainly distorted my view.