The Clone Redemption

by Steven L. Kent

  Wishes were like intentions; they counted for shit.

  “We’re meeting the Cygnus Central Fleet at Providence Kri,” I said. “I’m going to leave you there for a little while.”

  “How long of a little while?” Ava asked, no longer pretending to smile.

  “I don’t know. You’ll be a lot safer there than you would be on a ship. The Unifieds aren’t attacking planets.”

  She looked at me, studying me closely, her arms folded across her chest. She said, “The aliens are.” Her eyes marched back and forth across my face, seeming to take in every detail. God, she was beautiful.

  “You’ll be safer on a planet than you would be on a ship,” I said. “At least you will be for a little while.”

  “You live for this. You live to fight, don’t you?” she asked.

  “You live for this . . .” The words echoed in my mind. The war did not belong to the Navy or the empire; it belonged to me.

  “The Unifieds haven’t asked for a truce,” I said. “The aliens are still scorching planets.”

  “I hoped maybe Terraneau was the end of it,” she said.

  The end of what? I said, “The aliens are going to attack every planet we have until they erase us from the galaxy. The war with the Unifieds is just a distraction. We’re like two kids fighting over a toy while their house burns down around them.”

  Ava put up a hand to stop me. She did not want to talk about aliens or reality.

  Hearing me mention the Avatari ended the charade. She stood there, her eyes twitching back and forth as if she were having some sort of seizure. Her arms dropped to her sides, and her hands formed fists. “They kill everyone,” she said. “They killed my girls.”

  She thought about what she had just said. “My girls ... my girls, they had their whole lives ahead of them.”

  When I did not answer, she stared up at me. A few seconds passed, before she asked, “How long do we have before the Avatari reach Providence Kri?”

  “I don’t know. I think it will be one of the last planets they hit before they attack Earth.”

  “Earth?”

  I needed to sleep, not talk. I had an hour or two to rest while Mars built FM transmitters to use as broadcast keys.

  Freeman was in his quarters trying to reach Sweetwater and Breeze. We had not heard back from them yet, and I began to wonder if perhaps they now considered us the enemy.

  While Ava and I discussed life, the galaxy, and the Avatari, Captain Cutter sailed the Churchill into a thousand-mile-wide zone flooded with highly charged electrical current from the local broadcast station. As the ship entered that zone, great tendrils of voltage formed around her hull, creating a glow so bright it could leave a man blinded. The streaks of electricity running the length of the ship carried so many joules that they would incinerate the entire crew had the ship not been properly insulated.

  The Churchill, a Perseus-class fighter carrier, had automatic tint shields on her viewports and insulated tiles along the length of her hull. As we approached the zone, Klaxons sounded, signaling the crew to return to stations, and the Churchill passed from the Scutum-Crux Arm of the Milky Way to the Cygnus Arm, a journey of more than twenty thousand light-years, in a matter of seconds.

  A flash of electricity so bright it could be detected by the human eye from a million miles away marked the ship’s exit from one arm of the galaxy, and an equally bright flash marked its entrance into the next. That flash was called an “anomaly.”

  Every broadcast was a scientific miracle, but pangalactic travel had become so mundane that the crew of the Churchill did not even think about it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Location: Planet A-361-D

  Galactic Position: Solar System A-361

  Astronomic Location: Bode’s Galaxy

  Because of their synchronous orbits around A-361-D, the two moons always remained on opposite sides of the planet. The sun shone on the far side of the planet, its glow illuminating the back of the planet and both of its moons. The sides facing the Fleet were bathed in shadow.

  Three of the Japanese Fleet’s four battleships had flown into position one hundred thousand miles from the moons. The Yamato and the Onoda hovered nearer to A-361-D/Satellite 1, the larger of the two moons, the one with the flat plain that looked like a landing field. The Kyoto patrolled A-361-D/ Satellite 2, the smaller moon.

  The Sakura remained another hundred thousand miles back, far enough away for Admiral Yamashiro to watch both moons from a viewport. He sat on the observation deck with Captain Takahashi. Takahashi looked through the viewport, then returned to his computer to oversee the operation through the eyes of satellites. He was too far away to see the battleships or the transports unassisted.

  “How do you think they will they react when we destroy their moons?” asked Captain Takahashi. With the other captains away, Takahashi became less formal around the admiral. Yamashiro was, after all, Takahashi’s father-in-law.

  “They would have attacked us already if they had the ability,” said Yamashiro. “They must not have a navy. It’s as if they have spent so much time conquering other planets that they have forgotten how to defend their own.”

  Takahashi walked to the viewport and leaned against the rail that ran beneath the glass. He stared out at A-361-D. The gas giant was a muddle of yellow and brown and orange.

  Far in the background, A-361, the star from which the solar system took its name, burned like an electrified ember. Earth’s future generations, assuming Earth would have future generations, might know this as the “Avatari System,” thought Takahashi. In another hundred years, children might be required to memorize the names of the four battleships in the Japanese Fleet, the Sakura, the Onoda, the Kyoto, and the Yamato.

  “What will we do if they shoot back at us?” he asked.

  Yamashiro dismissed the idea. “We’ve analyzed the moons,” he said. “They pose no threat.”

  The video feed from one of the satellites shadowed the Onoda. Another showed a view of seemingly empty space, that was, in fact, occupied by a stealth transport. That same satellite also had a telescopic sight on the moon, which included a very clear view of the flat area that Yamashiro’s officers now called, “the deck.” Everyone agreed that it looked like a landing field, but it could also have been the roof of a huge subterranean city or a missile-defense system. Because he did not know what lurked under that flat top, Yamashiro had sent the Yamato to back up the Onoda. On his computer screen, a satellite tracked the Yamato as it approached the larger moon, lagging twenty thousand miles behind her sister ship.

  Yamashiro didn’t care about the moon or what it housed. Gathering scientific data did not interest him.

  Back in his office, Yamashiro had a photograph that he had not yet shared with Takahashi or the other captains, one that made the deck on A-361-D/Satellite 1 and the little ring of buildings on A-361-D/Satellite 2 look insignificant. It was a photographic image of planet A-361-B taken by a scout satellite, and it showed a city.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The two lead transports carried infiltration pods but no SEALs to fly them. On this mission, they would use the S.I.P.s as weapons instead of transports. On this mission, the S.I.P.s were both the message and the messenger.

  Two technicians rode in the kettle of each of the transports. The technicians did not need to open the pods to program them. They prepared the pods using special computer stations. Though the techs had never programmed pods to overcharge and self-destruct, they had been trained in the operation of field-resonance engines. They jacked computer lines into the pods and typed in instructions.

  Now that the pods would be used as torpedoes, the techs loaded the S.I.P.s into the launching device with new reverence. Once they had the pods in place, they returned to their programming stations. The displays on the computers glowed like neon signs in the darkness of the kettle, their low glow showing on the wall in a twist of white and red and green.

  Young and tired of exploring Bode’s
Galaxy, the technicians normally complained and commiserated as they worked. They criticized officers and gossiped about shipboard romances. On this day, though, with high-ranking officers listening in from nearby battleships, the technicians only spoke to report their progress.

  The field-resonance engines required two minutes and twenty-seven seconds to build an explosive overcharge. That left the techs and the transport pilot with a chilling two minutes and twenty-three seconds in which they would sit with the S.I.P.s as they morphed into bombs.

  Admiral Yamashiro ordered the attack, and Miyamoto Genyo, captain of the Onoda, coordinated it. Sitting on the bridge of his battleship, grim-faced, his eyes dark as flints, his lips pressed so tightly together they formed a single flesh-colored line, his shoulders tight, he watched the satellite feeds, ready to pull the plug on the operation if something went wrong.

  “Flight path programmed,” reported a technician on the transport preparing to attack the moon known as A-361-D/ Satellite 1.

  “Flight path programmed,” reported a tech on the transport preparing to attack the moon known as A-361-D/Satellite 2.

  Miyamoto gave the order that everyone anticipated and feared. Speaking in Japanese, he said, “Charge the infiltration pods.”

  Time seemed to freeze at that moment. For Miyamoto, who had never put much thought into the length of two minutes, the next one hundred and forty-seven seconds felt like a lifetime. From the bridge of his ship, he watched the larger moon, studying the curve of its surface, and he wondered what mysteries it held.

  Miyamoto looked at the timer and saw that only twelve seconds had passed.

  No one spoke. The sailors manning the bridge of the Onoda remained silent. If the technicians in the transports had spoken, Miyamoto would have heard. He had a commandLink connection with the pilots of the transports as well.

  Twenty seconds had passed.

  Miyamoto watched an unenhanced view of the moon through a viewport. Seen from hundreds of thousands of miles away, its surface had no more features than a rubber ball.

  Twenty-seven seconds had passed.

  Miyamoto turned to his satellite feeds, his expression unflinching. Through the satellite’s mobile eye, he could count the pea-sized pebbles around the target. He could see the “deck” and the land around it. The satellite allowed him to zoom in close enough to study a grain of sand or pan his view out so far that he could peer down on an entire hemisphere.

  He thought about Bushido, the Samurai code of conduct. The old captain organized his life around his own personal Bushido, letting it bind his thoughts as rigidly as any Christian monk had ever embraced the Ten Commandments. Even before the war, back when he lived on Ezer Kri with his wife, Miyamoto tried to live the detached life of the Samurai code. When he visited his children and their children, he had made himself gruff and distant and showed no more emotion than a stone in a river.

  He knew that his sailors considered him cold and indifferent. He also knew about the Kabuki mask in the officer’s lounge, the face of a scowling demon that his officers jokingly referred to as Miyamoto-san.

  The code was the stuff of legends and stories, a tradition so old that nobody knew how rigidly the ancients had lived it. Miyamoto’s New Japan was built upon such legends. And now, with the future of that New Japan hanging in the balance, Miyamoto Genyo was glad for the code.

  When the timer showed that one minute and five seconds had passed, Miyamoto ordered the transport pilots to purge the air from the kettles and open the rear hatches. He gave the order in Japanese.

  The pilots responded immediately.

  This was the pivotal moment. By opening their hatches, the transports would nullify the stealth envelope that kept them hidden. If the aliens were watching, they would detect the transports, and they might attack.

  Seconds ticked by slowly. One minute and five seconds became one-fifteen, and then one-thirty-five.

  Takeda grimaced, and told the technicians, “Prepare to launch.”

  He looked at the moon through the viewport, a silver coin in a velvet space. He looked at its image in the satellite feed and saw a desert pitted by craters and marked with a deck as flat as a dance floor.

  One minute and fifty-two seconds. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five.

  Miyamoto clenched his hands into fists and hid his fists by his sides so that no one saw him trembling. He felt the weight of humanity upon him, but his eyes remained fixed as he said, “Ute!,” the word that translated to the English command “Fire!”

  Able to hold twelve stealth infiltration pods at a time, the launching device worked like the cylinder of a revolver. It fired its first pod, rotated twenty degrees, and fired the next one, then the next all in under a second.

  Flying at top speed, without a human payload, the S.I.P.s could reach the planet in less than five seconds. Passengers slowed the pods down—not because of the added weight but because they were fragile. When the pods accelerated at top speed, the gravitational force inside the compartment was more than the human body could withstand. Possessing so much power that they seemed to bend the laws of physics, the S.I.P.s could decelerate so quickly that the force would turn human passengers inside out.

  Moments after they left the transports, the S.I.P.s accelerated to ten million miles per hour. They dropped to the speed of sound as they reached their targets. One of the S.I.P.s reached its target. Two did not.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Captain Takahashi, standing by the viewport and watching the larger of the moons, only knew that the mission had begun because Yamashiro told him. There were no explosions or bursts of laser to signal the beginning of the attack. Still staring out into space, waiting to see what would happen to the moons, he heard his father-in-law’s sharp gasp.

  He turned in time to see Yamashiro yelling into the communications console. “Return to the Sakura.” He spoke in English. Yamashiro generally spoke in Japanese when addressing junior officers, but he gave this order in English.

  The pilot on the other end of the communication asked, “What about survivors?”

  Yamashiro stood partway out of his chair as he shouted, “Return immediately!” He took a breath, and added, “There are no survivors.”

  Takahashi wanted to know what had happened, but he knew better than to interrupt the admiral. Still listening for clues, he looked out through the viewport and searched in time to see the smaller of the moons fall apart. First, it blurred into a smudge, as if fog had formed on the viewport. An envelope of fog, or dust, or maybe gas formed around it. Whatever rose off A-361-D/Satellite 2, it was the same color as the moon itself and translucent. It did not spread. It remained tight around the moon and became thicker and thicker, a stifling, suffocating cloud. Focusing on the words “no survivors,” Takahashi wondered if somehow one of the transports had collided with the moon. But Satellite 2 had come undone, and that suggested more than a transport mishap. The core that held the moon together broke and dissolved before his eyes.

  Feeling a sense of elation, Takahashi looked at the larger moon, hoping to see similar destruction. Nothing had changed on Satellite 1.

  “No! Do not return to the Sakura,” Yamashiro said, countermanding his first orders. Takahashi heard something in Yamashiro’s voice he had never heard before. He heard fear. Clearly struggling to keep from shouting, he growled, “Rendezvous with the other transport but do not return to this ship until you are given further orders.”

  Then, obviously speaking to the bridge, he barked the fatal order, “Prepare to broadcast!”

  “Admiral, are you leaving us in space?” asked a voice over the console. Takahashi knew the man was a transport pilot.

  “We will return for you,” Yamashiro told the transport pilots. “We are broadcasting out of the solar system. We will contact you when . . .” But he clearly did not know how to finish the sentence.

  “Yes, sir.” The voice that came from the console speaker bore the uncertain tone of a terrified child.

  Yama
shiro turned his attention to the bridge. “Broadcast status?” he barked, waited less than a second for a response, then repeated the question in a more emphatic tone. “What is our broadcast status? We need to broadcast now!”

  “Admiral, the generator is not yet charged.”

  Yamashiro stared at the screens, glanced toward the viewport, looking right through Takahashi, then back at the screens. “Broadcast us the moment it’s ready!”

  “What is our destination, sir?” asked Commander Suzuki, Takahashi’s second-in-command.

  “Out of the solar system! Anywhere outside of this solar system!”

  One of the transport pilots asked, “Admiral, where do you want us to rendezvous?”

  “Get as far from A-361-D as you can ... as far from every planet as you can. Get as far as you can from those planets, and keep flying farther away. We’ll find you. When we return, we’ll find you.”

  Takahashi stood behind Admiral Yamashiro, staring over his shoulder. He looked into the various screens and saw nothing. All but one of the displays showed nothing but open space.

  “Why are we broadcasting out of the solar system?” he asked.

  If Yamashiro heard the question, he did not acknowledge it. He sat hunched over the monitors as if searching for secrets in the empty screens.

  “Admiral, why are we leaving the solar system?” Takahashi repeated.

  Yamashiro still showed no sign of hearing him.

  Suzuki’s voice came over the console. “Admiral, the engines are . . .”

  “Take us out of this solar system.” Yamashiro yelled the words.

  “What is our destination, sir?”

  “Out. Anywhere out of this system!” He sounded desperate. He sounded frantic. Takahashi thought he sounded crazed as well.