The Clone Alliance

by Steven L. Kent

  Atkins disciples preached independence from Earth. They called themselves the Morgan Atkins Believers. The government called them “Mogats,” an abbreviation of the name MOrGan ATkins, and dismissed them as cranks.

  Over the next fifty years, however, the Atkins movement grew. The 2460 census found twenty thousand Mogats. In 2480, more than a million people identified themselves as Atkins believers. By 2510, there were over 200 million of them scattered across the 180 worlds of the Republic. They engaged in smuggling, sedition, and petty crimes. Whenever planets talked about breaking away from the Republic, Mogats were involved.

  But the Mogats could never have overthrown the Unified Authority on their own.

  In 2510, C.A.T.O, the Confederate Arms Treaty Organization, declared independence from the Unified Authority. The Confederate Arms included four of the six arms of the Milky Way. Only the Orion Arm, the arm in which Earth was located, and the neighboring Sagittarius Arm remained loyal. With tens of billions of citizens, the Confederate Arms provided the troops for a revolution, and the Mogats provided the fleet. The government labeled them “Separatists” and set about squashing them until the attack.

  The Japanese got involved through the Confederate Arms. They had lived on a planet called Ezer Kri. When they petitioned to rename their planet Shin Nippon, the U.A. Senate branded it an act of sedition and the Mogats helped them escape.

  In 2512, the Separatists took the upper hand. By defeating the Earth Fleet and destroying the Broadcast Network, they effectively shut down the Unified Authority by shutting down travel and communications between Earth and its colonies. That same day, the alliance between the Confederate Arms, the Japanese, and the Mogats collapsed. The Mogats seized control of most of the fleet. Yoshi Yamashiro had commandeered four battleships. I ended up on Little Man, not knowing how the battle royale had ended.

  For months I wondered what became of Yamashiro and his four-ship fleet. Now, out of nowhere, he and one of his self-broadcasting battleships had appeared in my space. With some guidance from a flight-deck officer, I flew my transport into one of the Sakura’s launch bays.

  As the rear doors of the kettle opened, I saw Yamashiro and two of his officers waiting to greet me.

  Yamashiro was a short man whose black hair was turning white. He had powerful shoulders and a wide neck. His hands were covered with calluses. The calloused hands and his quiet confidence suggested some background in martial arts.

  Because he was a politician and not an officer, Yamashiro dressed in suits instead of a uniform. He seemed to own an endless supply of dark blue blazers and red neckties. The officers beside him wore the midnight blue uniform of the Shin Nippon Navy.

  “May I come aboard your ship?” Yamashiro asked in a jovial tone.

  “Sure,” I said. “You don’t have to ask.”

  “I would not dream of setting foot on your property without first asking permission. We spent several weeks looking for you. Do you know how we knew you were on Little Man?” Yamashiro asked as he started up the ramp.

  “How did you know I was on that planet?” I asked.

  “As my ship approached the planet, my radar men located the lifeless remains of a Unified Authority fighter carrier. One of them radioed me, and said, ‘Someone has destroyed a fighter carrier out here.’

  “I told them, ‘We must have found him. Only Wayson Harris could destroy such a ship.’”

  He was talking about the Grant. I had seen the ship blow up, but I was not the one who did it.

  Yamashiro was no taller than five-six. He came up to my chest. His skin was the color of very dark tea, and his eyes were black as ebony. He looked around the kettle with a bemused expression, smiling as he examined the broadcast engine sticking out of the cutaway floor.

  “My partner is hurt,” I said, pointing to where Ray Freeman lay on the bench.

  “Ah, I see.” Yamashiro turned to one of his men, and said, “Takahashi, call for an emergency team.” Then he told me, “We have an excellent physician on board.”

  Takahashi went to an intercom station just outside my transport. He spoke loud enough for me to hear his voice, but he spoke in Japanese. Moments later, an emergency medical team appeared. Yamashiro and I stood and watched as the medics bent over Freeman and loaded him onto a stretcher. Before leaving, one of the medics spoke to Yamashiro.

  “He says that your friend’s burns are bad, but the cuts are not so bad. He has a concussion, but there has been no permanent damage.”

  “Can they fix him up?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Yamashiro said. “We have excellent medical facilities aboard this ship.

  “Perhaps we should leave the team to attend to your friend,” Yamashiro said. “You and I have much to discuss.” With this, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket and lit one up. He did not offer me a smoke. We had spent some time together, so he knew I would not take one.

  As we left, Yamashiro’s two-officer entourage fell in behind us, one standing a pace behind him to his left and the other one a pace behind and to his right. Despite my presence, his men stayed in formation.

  If he sent either of his men ahead to open a door or fetch a drink of water, the other officer would step between the governor and me. That was the point. Yamashiro was the shogun, and these officers were his samurai, always standing one step behind and flanking him on the left and right—positioned to protect.

  “We have been tracking you for several weeks,” Yamashiro said, as we walked. “You have proven a most interesting subject.

  “At first we thought that you decided to leave the Marines and become a farmer. Then again, you must have changed your mind, or else you would not have left that planet.”

  “Guess I wasn’t cut out for the farming life,” I said.

  “We became confused when you flew away in a transport. There was no place to go in such a short-range vehicle.”

  We went up two levels on an elevator and came out in an area filled with civilian offices. This part of the ship was brightly lit. Rows of cubicles stretched from one wall to the other. Men in white shirts and neckties worked quietly at their desks. I noticed women working in the administrative area of the ship as well.

  “We soon realized you were flying to the broadcast station. There was some question about how you reached such a remote planet as Little Man in the first place. You must have traveled in a self-broadcasting ship.” Yamashiro paused and waited for me to confirm what he had guessed.

  “That ship broke down,” I said. I neglected to mention that a suicidal pilot used it to broadcast himself into the hull of the Grant, the derelict fighter carrier Yamashiro’s men spotted floating near Little Man.

  Hearing this, Yamashiro stopped walking and cursed softly, a pained expression on his face. One of the officers walking behind us quietly laughed. As he dug into his pocket, Yamashiro said, “Takahashi said you were stranded on that planet. I told him you would not have gone to such a planet unless you had a method to leave.”

  “You give me more credit than I deserve,” I said.

  Yamashiro pulled out a money clip and stripped off five bills. “Perhaps I do. I bet Takahashi fifty dollars.” He handed the money to the officer, who bowed and accepted it without a word.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Yamashiro started walking again.

  “And when you reached the broadcast station, you behaved in a most peculiar fashion. Some of my men thought that you had discovered a way to restart the Broadcast Network or at least a way to make the station operational. We watched you remove the broadcast engine.” He stopped speaking and waited for me to explain.

  “We were trying to splice the broadcast engine into the transport’s electrical system.”

  Yamashiro hissed. He dug into his pocket, pulled out another fifty dollars, and gave it to Takahashi, who absolutely beamed. Yamashiro shook his head. “That was what Takahashi believed. I thought maybe you hoped to create some sort of weapon with it.” He continued walkin
g, but now he stared at the ground instead of looking at me.

  “No,” I said, “I was just looking for a ticket back to Earth.”

  “And you tried to modify a transport so you could use it to broadcast?” Yamashiro asked. He stopped walking and turned to face me. “Harris, that would be suicide. You did not have a broadcast computer. Even if you managed to make the engine work, you could not control the broadcast. You would die.”

  The two officers walking behind us had been whispering back and forth. Now they stopped and listened closely.

  “Yes, I knew that,” I said.

  “My engineers tell me that you could not fly a transport through the Broadcast Network, the electrical current would atomize the metal in its hull,” Yamashiro said, sounding scandalized.

  “I figured as much,” I said.

  “So you chose suicide over the life of a farmer?” Yamashiro looked shocked.

  “That just about sums it up.”

  Takahashi, the officer to whom Yamashiro had just given that fifty dollars, said something in Japanese. I did not recognize the words, but I would have bet it translated to “speck” or something similar.

  “Perhaps I have not overestimated you after all, Harris,” said Yamashiro, a wicked smile creasing his face. He turned back toward the officer behind us. “Takahashi did not believe that a clone such as yourself would have enough initiative to consider suicide. He bet me that you and your friend would not have flown out here if you did not believe you could restart the Broadcast Network.”

  Takahashi sneered at me as he handed Yamashiro a wad of bills. “I bet heavily that you would rather die than live as a farmer, Harris.” Yamashiro counted the bills silently, folded them, and placed them in his pocket. He made no attempt to hide his satisfaction.

  “Sadly, I will not get to enjoy my winnings. Takahashi is my son-in-law. My daughter will complain to her mother that I have robbed her husband of two hundred dollars, and my wife will make me give the money back.” I glanced back at Takahashi, who positively beamed.

  Now that the excitement had ended, Yamashiro started walking again. I followed. The officers behind us followed in stony silence.

  “How did they find us?” Freeman sat up in his hospital bed. The only time he would lie flat was when he was unconscious. At all other times, he sat up alert.

  “One of Yamashiro’s officers must have seen the movie,” I said.

  “The movie?” Freeman asked, his low, rumbling voice betraying not so much as a hint of curiosity.

  “The Battle for Little Man,” I said. “Someone made a movie about the battle I fought on Little Man. It’s a great movie, unblemished propaganda without so much as a shred of accurate information.”

  In the movie, a natural-born version of me takes on ten thousand Mogats nearly single-handedly and saves six Marines. In real life, we were known as the “Little Man Seven,” but there was nothing heroic about our survival.

  Of course, Ray Freeman did not go to movies. The Battle for Little Man was a big release that played in holotoriums all across the two arms that remained loyal to the Unified Authority.

  Other people might have asked more about the movie. Freeman just shrugged. “Why were they looking for you?” His face had not healed. He had medical patches on his cheeks, forehead, over one eye, and on his neck. The burns left swollen areas that would become scars, but his skin had always been rough. These new scars blended into his face more naturally than the knot of scars on the back of his skull. With his dark brown skin, the back of his head resembled a mahogany burl.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “The only thing Yamashiro would tell me was that he wanted to hold a summit.”

  “You trust him?” Freeman asked.

  “What does it matter?” I asked. “We’re off the transport and back in the war.” Freeman was a mercenary. I was a Marine. Few things mattered more than getting back in the war.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  When the war began, the Confederate Arms, the Mogats, and the Japanese were allies and no one quite knew who ran their navy. Yamashiro’s Japanese officers, the men who renovated and commanded the ships, referred to the fleet as the “Hinode Fleet.” Around the Unified Authority, we usually called it the “Separatist Fleet” because “Separatist” was a catchall phrase. Most of the senior officers called it the “Mogat Fleet,” however, because they blamed all of the trouble on the Mogats.

  Before the Mogats took control of the ships, or the Japanese renovated them, it was the Galactic Central Fleet, or G.C. Fleet for short. When the fleet launched, it included 200 cruisers, 200 destroyers, and 180 battleships. When it attacked Earth, it was down to 540 ships. The Mogats won that engagement, but the battle took a toll on their fleet.

  Over breakfast, Yoshi Yamashiro told me that the “Hinode Fleet” had come out of the battle against the Earth Fleet with 472 ships. To the best of his knowledge, the Confederate Arms managed to hold on to 32 battleships and 25 destroyers when the alliance collapsed.

  That left the Mogats with 415 ships. He gave me an hour to discuss this intelligence with Freeman, then called for us to meet with him to discuss his plans.

  “The Mogats have declared war on the Confederate Arms,” Yamashiro began. “They have not yet found Shin Nippon, but I believe they plan to attack us as well.”

  This was not a summit. If I had to label the conclave, I would have called it a sales meeting. We sat in a small conference room with tweed-lined walls and a ten-foot table. Bright light filled the room. As the meeting began, a pretty girl in a short blue skirt that barely reached the tops of her thighs stepped into the room. She carried a tray with coffee, tea, water, and juice. I took juice. Freeman declined. Yamashiro and his posse drank coffee.

  “We do not think it likely that the Mogats will attack any of the existing U.A. fleets. The Mogat fleet is too weak, and the U.A. fleets are too immobile to pose a threat,” Yamashiro said.

  Sitting behind Yamashiro, Takahashi and some officer whom I could not identify did their best impressions of ancient samurais. They sat perfectly still, backs erect, hands at their waists. They wore the conservatively cut uniforms of Shin Nippon officers instead of brightly colored kimonos and swords, but they bore intense expressions on their faces and their unflinching gaze took in both Freeman and me.

  “We estimate that the Atkins Believers still possess over a hundred battleships. This gives them a tactical advantage over any planet in the galaxy. As we saw in the days before the attack on Earth, ground defenses are not effective against orbital attack.

  “The Mogats have proven most unstable. So far, we know that they have attacked seven planets in the Orion Arm, eight planets in the Cygnus Arm, and five planets in the Perseus Arm.” Yamashiro turned to Freeman. “I assume you are also familiar with Mogat tactics.”

  Freeman nodded.

  “Are you a Marine like Harris?” Yamashiro asked.

  “I freelance,” Freeman said.

  “Ah, so it is,” Yamashiro said. The two officers behind him exchanged a quick glance. I almost expected one officer to hand a stack of bills to the other.

  Yamashiro had timeless features. He might have been fifty years old, he might have been eighty. The skin on his face had dried but not wrinkled beyond the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes.

  “Has anyone tried to retaliate?” Freeman asked.

  “This is a war of ghosts,” Yamashiro said. “Unified Authority ships cannot retaliate unless they happen to be in orbit around a planet when the Mogat ships arrive. The Confederates cannot afford a fight. Their navy is far too small to engage the Mogat Fleet.”

  “Have the Mogats returned to Earth?” I asked.

  “Their only interest in Earth was to cripple the Unified Authority. Once the Broadcast Network was destroyed and Earth was cut off, they turned their attention to other planets.

  “From what we can tell, the Mogats attacked a few select Earth targets after defeating the Earth Fleet. I don’t think they a
ttacked Washington, DC.”

  Who could understand Mogat thinking? Washington, DC, was the seat of the Unified Authority government.

  “Where did they attack?” I asked.

  “They attacked approximately six hundred strategic targets across North America,” Yamashiro said.

  As a graduate of U.A. Orphanage #553, I knew what that number meant. It made perfect sense. With its fairy-tale stories about underground cities in the center of the galaxy and alien races, the Mogat system of beliefs seemed no more credible than Greek mythology. I did understand one of their tenets, however—they hated clones. To the Mogat mind, clones were demons, and Liberator clones were Satan himself. “They went after the orphanages,” I said.

  “The clone farms,” Takahashi corrected me. His eyes bored into mine as he said this. I glared right back at him.

  “It appears that the Unified Authority does not plan to rebuild the orphanages,” Yamashiro said. “We have surveyed the damage from space. No work has been done.”

  “They may be afraid to,” I said. “They lost their fleet in the war. They don’t have any way to protect themselves if the Mogats return, and they may be afraid of provoking them.”

  “I agree,” Yamashiro said. “I believe this is also the reason they have not tried to rebuild the Mars broadcast station. They are afraid of provoking another attack.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Freeman asked.

  Takahashi looked at Freeman, and I did not like what I saw in his eyes. Maybe I imagined the whole thing, or maybe I saw something hidden in the flat expression on his face. Something about the way Takahashi smiled at Yamashiro suggested to me that he looked upon Freeman and me as expendable assets.