Rogue Clone

by Steven L. Kent

  “Not as good a show as Thurston, though,” I said. “You were crazy to kill Klyber. Did you really think you could stop the Doctrinaire by killing Klyber? Didn’t it ever occur to you that Huang would replace him with Robert Thurston?”

  “Harris, Bryce Klyber was a personal friend, but this is war. I hated killing Bryce, but I need Thurston in his place.”

  “Thurston is a better strategist than Klyber ever was,” I said. “You were there when Klyber tried to match him in a simulation.” Days after Thurston replaced Admiral Absalom Barry as the commander of the Inner Scutum-Crux Fleet, Admiral Klyber challenged him to a simulated battle. Thurston read Klyber’s opening move and predicted his every step, forcing him into submission.

  “Klyber was more dangerous for our purposes,” Halverson said. “I’ve served under both officers. Thurston’s style is tailor-made for us.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said. “Robert Thurston is the best commander in the U.A. Navy.”

  “Under most circumstances,” Halverson said, his smile as unfailing as ever.

  “But you didn’t need to kill Klyber,” I said. “Huang took the ship away from him at the summit. He gave Thurston the Doctrinaire and moved Klyber to the support fleet.”

  Halverson’s smile faltered. “They moved Klyber to the support fleet,” Halverson echoed, and the pride and bravado vanished from his voice. “I learned about the transfer after the cable was set, but by the time I heard about it, it was already too late . . . too late.” He stood silently staring at me, then turned to leave. “Enjoy the show, Harris,” he called over his shoulder.

  He and Sam left the brig; and once again, I was alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I had heard about strategic displays like the one Tom Halverson gave me. Sailors used to call them “red worlds.” This was not the obsolete strategic views replaced by the 3-D holographic displays used in modern ships. This was a portable display that officers could take into engineering or battle stations.

  The visor was about three inches thick. Inside its housing was a laser that could draw objects in brilliant detail. The only problem was that it could only draw them in one color—red. My eyes never did adjust to that red-and-black display.

  I switched on the power and pressed my face into a soft foam ring that ran along the inside of the visor. A little sign appeared instructing me to adjust the eyepieces to the shape of my face. Using two knobs built into the top of the visor, I adjusted the display until the words in that sign seemed to float out in space.

  The display showed a satellite view of Earth. I could see the side of the planet facing the sun. In the display, the lasers drew clouds and land in red. The ocean was black and hollow. The edge of the moon was barely visible in the right corner of the display. In the lower corner, a digital clock counted backward. The clock read 00:05:37.

  When the clock reached 00:01:00, I heard a muffled commotion outside my cell as the ship was called to general quarters. The call to battle stations lasted the full minute. The sound must have been thunderous throughout the ship. In the brig, where thick iron walls muted most of the sound, I soon forgot about the call to general quarters and did not notice when it ended.

  The visor blanked out. It went dead for just a moment then winked back to life, and I knew that we had just broadcasted into Earth space. In the red-and-black panorama, the fabric of space around the moon seemed to shatter as 540 self-broadcasting ships appeared just behind the moon. Seen in red and black, the charcoal gray Hinode ships were not visible on this display but a label along the bottom of the screen said 540 ships.

  A more modern display would have offered me optical menus. I might have found a way to view the Hinode ships using heat or motion-tracking sensors. On this old relic, the most I could do was zoom in and zoom out.

  Turning my attention to Earth, I saw hundreds of ships rising from all points on the globe and forming a blockade. The Doctrinaire was nowhere among them. There were Perseus-class fighter carriers, battleships, and destroyers. Not all of the Unified Authority ships were made for combat. The fleet included medical barges and emergency evacuation ships designed to save crews from dying vessels.

  I zoomed out to see a wider perspective. From this angle, the U.A. ships looked no more significant than specks of dust in a sandstorm. As I closed my perspective, the U.A. ships took on shape and detail. My camera was still far enough out to see from Canada to the Brazilian coast. From here, the Earth ships looked like a swatch of broken glass. Panning in so close that I could make out the Rocky Mountains, I studied the Earth Fleet’s formation.

  I watched as an endless stream of fighter jets sprayed out of carrier flight tubes. Even this close in, the fighters were nothing more than motes as they flew into formation and moved to the front of the fleet.

  Fumbling blindly with the little control pad as I watched the Earth fleet fly into formation, I accidentally pressed a button that altered my view. Earth was still formed of solid land and hollow oceans, and the open space around the moon was still black, but now objects appeared in that space.

  The Hinode ships were now more marked than displayed. They were still grouped around the moon, some 240,000 miles away. The two fleets would only need a minute to cross the 200,000 miles between the Earth and moon.

  Pressing another button changed my battle perspective so that I could now get a closer look at the Hinode ships. Fine vector lines traced the edges of the ships. There were only three kinds of ships in the Hinode Fleet—cruisers, destroyers, and battleships. These ships were big. They would make easy targets.

  When I switched back to the Earth Fleet, I did not like what I saw. The fleet could have used Klyber at the helm. It looked untried and unready for battle . . . or, perhaps, simply unready for this battle. Whoever was in command of the Fleet had placed the frigates near the front of the formation, just behind the fighters—a textbook formation for a different battle. The U.A. did not need frigates, a class of ship designed specifically to combat fighters for this battle. The Hinode Fleet had capital ships and no fighters. I saw this and realized Che Huang had undoubtedly installed himself as Fleet Commander.

  “Good going, Huang,” I laughed.

  Looking at how the Earth Fleet had arrayed itself, I saw that the cruisers were stationed so far out that they would be easy targets for any ships that flanked the formation.

  In the bottom corner of the display, the clock now counted forward. Six minutes had passed since the enemy ships broadcasted into Earth space. The Hinode ships spread their ranks and started forward.

  One of the old cruisers, however, seemed to have stalled. It inched forward, limping behind the other Hinode ships in stuttering short bursts. This had to have been the 540th ship, the one that Halverson doubted would be in on the battle. I might have thought that it was the command ship, but I was on the command ship. I would have felt that kind of engine problem.

  The Earth Fleet had twenty carriers with 1,400 fighters. Those fighters dashed forward and splashed across the front of the advancing Hinode formation, parting in every direction and breaking into its ranks. The visor lit up as thousands of short-range lasers and cannons opened fire, and still the Hinode ships advanced, closing in on Earth.

  I zoomed in for a more detailed view. Now I could see both the cannon fire and the toll it took on the fighters. Laser fire appeared on my visor as hair-width lines that flared out of nowhere then disappeared without a trace. Looking into the battle was like staring into a dandelion, there were so many filaments. The U.A. fighter squadrons evaporated before my eyes. The bigger Hinode ships simply picked them off as they continued their advance.

  But where was the Doctrinaire? The battle had begun.

  The front ranks of the Hinode and Earth Fleets were almost within range, and the barrage began. Missiles and long-range beams filled the air. I could not tell the difference between particle beams and lasers on this display. I knew that the U.A. ships had both particle beams and lasers, and that the particl
e beams were far more destructive.

  Hinode ships had only lasers.

  Perhaps the frigates were a sacrifice. The first Hinode ships blew them up quickly and brushed past their mangled hulls without incident. Next came the front ranks of destroyers and battleships. Running into this bedrock layer, the Hinode ships spread wide.

  And then it happened. First the jagged shards of lightning appeared. I had never seen anything like the anomaly caused by the Doctrinaire. It was a huge shimmering bubble, as big as any two ships on the field. On my visor, it showed in translucent red.

  This antique could not possibly show the bright intensity of the anomaly. On the battlefield, it would have looked silver and white. It would be the same color and intensity of the electricity that filled my head when I was being tortured, and I imagined it against the pure black background of space. Any pilot looking in that direction would have been blinded.

  From that silver white bubble, the bow of the Doctinaire emerged. It was huge and fierce, like a fire demon emerging from a cocoon of flames. It was the embodiment of the entire galactic military—a beast that had won every war and nearly every battle for the last five hundred years.

  Huang was a better tactician than I gave him credit for. The cruisers were off on the edges to make space. As the anomaly began, the U.A. battleships cleared out of the way and the Doctrinaire drifted into the void that they created.

  Even before it had fully emerged from its anomaly, the Doctrinaire began to fire. Its massive cannons lashed out quickly, appearing to pluck Hinode ships out of space. I imagined the dzzzz sound as the new, special cannons fired their half-second bursts. In the vacuum of space, a Hinode battleship trying to fly over the front line of the U.A. formation exploded, jettisoning anything that was not fastened down. Then the fires within the ship consumed all of the oxygen around it and the ship imploded. The crumpled ship floated sideways as it drifted away from the battle.

  More cannon fire followed. Another Hinode ship exploded and imploded, then drifted away. Then two cannons fired in different directions, and two more derelicts appeared. Every time the cannons from the Doctrinaire hit an enemy ship, the ship exploded, taking thousands of men with it.

  Across the battlefield, the reaction was immediate. Hinode ships scattered. They broke out of their offensive position and shot off in weaving evasive threads. Several ships broadcasted away. Zoomed out far enough to see the entire battle, I could not make out details. I did not know how many ships fled from the scene. I just saw the anomalies. It looked like twenty or maybe thirty ships had fled.

  From the corner of my eye, I noted the time. The battle had gone on for nine minutes and twelve seconds. The entire Hinode Fleet could broadcast to safety if it wanted. Because I took my eye off the battle for just a second to look at the clock, I almost missed the decisive blow.

  I saw the flash and zoomed in immediately. I was just in time to see the last of the lightning as it danced like Saint Elmo’s Fire along the edges of the Doctrinaire. The great ship seemed to list, its bow dipping down and moving counter-clockwise as if preparing for some spiraling maneuver. Then the ship seemed to flinch. It grew brighter as light shined through its portals. Panels along its roof burst, unleashing folds of flame and vapor. Finally the Doctrinaire , the great ship, the leviathan, vanished in a glowing ball that hurled debris in every direction before collapsing on itself.

  I pulled my face out of the visor. I needed a moment to understand what I had seen. When I looked back, I saw the wreckage of the Doctrinaire hanging silently in space. It looked like a giant bird lying with its wings spread. The ship was utterly dark now, with not so much as a spark flashing.

  Only a handful of U.A. ships remained around the Doctrinaire . The destruction of the Doctrinaire brought even more ruin: every ship around it was smashed.

  Now the Hinode Fleet regrouped. It had lost a few ships at the onset of the battle. After the Apocalypse of the Doctrinaire , the Hinode Fleet suddenly had a huge numerical advantage. Most of the Earth Fleet had been destroyed. Many of those U.A. ships that survived the destruction were so badly damaged that they could hardly defend themselves as the Hinode ships renewed their attack.

  Part IV

  REDEMPTION

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  On board the Hinode flagship, sirens blared and people shouted. I heard the muffled sounds of celebration through the walls of the brig. They had destroyed the Unified Authority’s goliath ship, but they had not made the galaxy safe for themselves. U.A. ships still patrolled Perseus, Norma, Cygnus, and Scutum-Crux. They would certainly retaliate.

  The door of the brig opened and in entered Yoshi Yamashiro. He looked dour as he approached. He came right to the door of my cell and spoke quietly. “The war is over, Harris.” He saw the antique “red world” sitting on my cot and asked, “Where did you get that display?”

  “Halverson gave it to me,” I said. “How did they do it? How did they destroy the Doctrinaire?”

  Yamashiro smiled, but I saw no joy in that smile. It was the tired smile, the man who has heard a funny joke but lacks the strength to appreciate it. “We should discuss that later.”

  “I’m not sure how much later I have,” I said.

  Yamashiro passed a package wrapped in brown paper through the bars. The package was approximately the same size as a folded flag. It was not soft, but it was bendable.

  “You will need to take care of the jailor yourself,” Yamashiro said. “We will be back in an hour.”

  “Take care of Sam?” I asked. “How do you expect me to do that?”

  “Let yourself out,” Yamashiro told me.

  As he left the brig, I gave the door a tug. It slid open easily on its rollers. I caught it after less than an inch. There were security cameras all along the brig, three of which had views into my cell. Smiling to myself and trying to look away from the cameras, I returned to my cot.

  I could have slipped out of my cell and killed Sam in his office. I knew where it was. I visited it on my way to my cell the day I was captured. The problem was that in all likelihood, he would spot me. The security cameras had motion-tracking.

  “You and I have a score to settle,” Sam called from the door of my cell. Instead of making me come to him, the Mogat jailor had come to me. Unfortunately, he also had a pistol in his right hand. That presented a problem.

  “You going to shoot me?” I asked.

  Sam pretended to give this question serious consideration, then beamed. “Yeah. I suppose I am.”

  “No trial?” I asked.

  Sam stuck his right hand, pistol and all, in through the bars. He aimed the pistol at me. “We have a problem. See, the Japanese think they won the war. They reconfigured the boats, you know. So they think they’re in charge. And the Confederate Arms, they think they won the war because Admiral Halverson came up with the idea of attacking Mars. They think they’re in charge, too.”

  At that moment, I still did not know about the Broadcast Network. All I knew was that the Doctrinaire had been destroyed. I did not even stop to question why other fleets had not sent ships into the battle. “What about Mars?” I asked.

  “You didn’t hear? We destroyed the Mars broadcast station,” Sam said. He saw the stunned look on my face. “Didn’t know about that, huh? We turned out the lights on the rest of the galaxy. Now the whole U.A. military is dark and stuck in place.“

  It took me a moment to understand what Sam meant. At first I thought he meant that the Network provided power to the rest of the Republic. Then I realized that he meant that there would be no communications. Without the Broadcast Network, the outer fleets would not only be stranded, they would have no idea about what had happened.

  “Which brings me back to you. Halverson and the Japanese want to let you go free. Now General Crowley, he knows what’s what. He figures it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, if you know what I mean. He figures, we shoot you now. Then, if Halverson and the Japanese complain, we say something along the
lines of, ‘Oops. We didn’t know you’d care.’”

  Sam stood just outside the bars at the far end of my cell, lazily pointing the gun in my general direction. His arm and hand were relaxed. I was a fish in a barrel. He probably wanted me to plead or to lunge for his pistol. What he did not expect . . .

  I sprang from the cot; but instead of lunging toward Sam as he must have expected, I vaulted along the floor in the other direction. Probably thinking that I had lost my nerve and was running for cover, he did not bother firing at me.

  As I reached the end of the cell, I kicked. The heavy door slid along its track and crushed Sam’s arm which was resting in the bars. He did not realize what had happened until the gun fell from his hand, which remained pinned in place by the bars. He screamed in surprise or pain, or rage, or possibly fear and fell to one knee.

  I did not know if anyone was watching on the security monitors, so I moved quickly.

  “You son of a . . .”

  “. . . test tube,” I finished the sentence for him.

  Sam pulled his arm from the bars and charged forward. He had to know that he did not stand a chance in this fight. He could not beat me whole. With his wrist broken, he would be an easy mark, and he had to know that I meant to kill him.

  As he came toward me, he rose to his feet. I chopped into the side of his neck with the heel of my right hand. Keeping my hand on his shoulder, I guided him face-first into the wall. He stumbled back, yelling as he toppled to the floor. I stomped on his neck and snapped it. Sam lay on the metal grating floor, silent and bloody, with a gash across his forehead and his neck creased at a sixty-degree angle. His left ear rested against his shoulder. His mouth had a frozen sneer that showed most of his teeth.

  Alien thoughts ran through my head as I looked at Sam lying on the ground. I felt regret, though not for Sam, per se. I hated the bastard. Had the war gone the other way, I had planned to kill Sam anyway. No, I did not feel bad about killing Sam. For some reason I just felt bad about killing. It was as if life had suddenly become more important to me because I had seen so much of it wasted. I tried to ignore those alien thoughts. I had work to do.