The Clone Republic

by Steven L. Kent

  Walking in a broad column, we turned a bend and saw two dwarf trees with thick, low-hanging branches that crisscrossed in an arch. These trees stood no more than forty feet tall, but the spot where their branches met was considerably lower. A wide stream of sunlight filtered in around them, bathing them with brilliant glare and shadows.

  Three shadowy figures dangled from the branches like giant possums. A quick scan of the forest floor told us that the bodies were our missing scouts. Each man’s armor and weapon sat in a neat pile beneath his lifeless carcass.

  We knew our scouts had died by hanging even before we cut their bodies down. The enemy had captured them, stripped them of their armor, and summarily executed them as war criminals.

  “I want those trees destroyed,” a major ordered, as we cut down the bodies. A demolitions man strapped explosives around the trunks. As we left, I heard a grand explosion and turned to watch as the forty-foot trees collapsed into each other.

  The enemy had time to leave trackers along the trail, but trackers were ineffective in such rough terrain. They also left mines and a few snipers behind. The mines were useless; we spotted them easily. The snipers, however, used effective hit-and-run tactics as they targeted our officers. We began our march with fifteen majors and three colonels. By nightfall, two of the colonels and six of the majors were dead. When I saw McKay late that afternoon, he was surrounding himself with enlisted men.

  “You holding up okay after that all-nighter?” Vince’s voice hummed over the interLink.

  “Bet I’m asleep before anyone else tonight,” I said, unable to stifle a yawn. Regrettably, Lee had not contacted me on a direct frequency. “You’d lose that bet,” Lector interrupted.

  “You’re on guard duty tonight.”

  “Sergeant, you cannot send a man on guard duty two nights in a row,” Lee said.

  “Are you running the show now, Lee?” Lector asked. I heard hate in his voice.

  “Back off, Vince,” I said.

  “Wayson . . .”

  “Stay out of this,” I hissed.

  On a private channel, Lee said, “I hate specking Liberators.”

  So did I.

  We reached the edge of the forest in the late afternoon. There we discovered that our air support had been busy.

  The still-unidentified squatters had built a town large enough for a few thousand residents just beyond the woods. It had paved roads and prefabricated Quonset-style buildings. If they had put up flags, the place would have looked like a military base.

  Our fighters struck during the night, shredding the town. I saw shattered windows, collapsed roofs, and melted walls. What I did not see was bodies.

  “Sarge, do you think this was their capital city?” one of my men asked. I did not answer. “Fall in,” I said over the platoon frequency. “Get ready. If we’re going to run into more resistance on this planet, it’s going to start here.”

  The town was also a likely place to find out the “squatters’ ” identity. We would find computers in the buildings. Perhaps we would find more. With our guns drawn and ready, we organized into a long, tactical column with riflemen and grenadiers from Lector’s platoon guarding our flanks. We waded toward town. Lee’s squad took point, moving cautiously in a group that included a rifleman, a grenadier, and a man with an automatic rifle. They moved in slowly, pausing by fences and hiding behind overturned cars. With every step it became clearer that the enemy had abandoned the city before our fighters attacked.

  Most of the cars lay flipped on their sides, their front ends scorched from missile hits or fuel explosions. Smoke and fire had blackened the windows of several vehicles. I kicked my boot through one car’s windshield in search of bodies but found none.

  The first building we passed was a two-story cracker box with only two windows on its fascia. The facade was untouched, but a laser blast had melted a ten-foot chasm in a sidewall. Metal lay melted around the gaping hole like the wax bleeding from a candle. The heat from the laser must have caused an explosion. The windows of the building had burst outward, spraying glass on the street. Though I could not feel the glass through my boots, I heard it splinter as I walked over it. The firefight began with a burst of three shots. Bullets struck the ground as Lee and his rifleman stepped around a derelict car. The bullets missed. Lee and his rifleman dropped back for cover and returned fire. The enemy had taken position in the ruins of a building that might have been a latrine. Pipes wrapped the sides of the small structure, and its walls were thick. The gunmen opened fire. I could see muzzle flashes.

  “Harris, report,” Captain McKay ordered.

  “We’re under fire, sir,” I said. “It seems like it’s just a few men hidden in a latrine. We should have the situation under control shortly.”

  “Pockets of resistance,” McKay said. “They’re trying to slow us down. I’m getting reports of small firefights on every street. Let me know when you have the situation handled.”

  “Aye, sir,” I said.

  “Lee, how are you doing up there?” I asked, changing frequencies.

  “These guys can’t shoot for shit,” Lee said. “Twenty yards away, tops, and . . .” He stopped talking as a long volley of shots ricocheted off the ground around him.

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Five distinct reports, single shots from an M27 that cut right through the clatter of machine-gun fire. Lector’s riflemen had flanked the enemy, slipped into the building behind them, and shot them in their hiding holes. One of the riflemen walked to a window and signaled that all was clear. His strategy was a textbook tactical advance.

  “Enemy contained,” Lector called in, over the interLink.

  I spotted a stairwell that ran below ground on the other side of the street. “Lee, take my position.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked as he let his squad walk ahead.

  “I see a door that needs opening,” I said as I peeled off from the column with two of my men in tow. We ran across the street and took cover behind a brick wall.

  The stairwell looked like it might lead to a bomb shelter or a subway station. It was wide enough for three men to run side by side. One of my men did a run by, peering down the stairs, then rolling out of range. He stood and took a position at the top of the stairs, signaling that the entry was clear. There were no windows in the concrete walls lining the stairs, just a seven-foot iron door with an arched top. I ran down the stairs and hid by the hinged side of the door. One of my men took the other side. As I pulled the door open, he counted to five then swung in, sweeping the scene with the muzzle of his rifle.

  “Clear,” he said.

  I followed him through the door.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the third man in my party said as he followed us into the structure. We had entered a tactical command room. File cabinets lined the walls. Several maps lay open on a table in a corner of the room. I checked the maps for traps, then leafed through the stack. The first map showed the names and locations of every military base in the Scutum-Crux Arm. The next map showed a complex system of dots and lines overlaying a map of the galaxy. A sidebar showed an enlarged view of the Sol System. When I saw a red circle surrounding Mars, I realized that it was a map of the broadcast network.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I said to my men. It was too rich a trove. It had to be rigged. We would leave it for the experts in Intelligence.

  Captain McKay told me to nap while the rest of the men set up camp. I found a shaded corner between a tree and a stone wall. Removing my helmet, I lay on my side in the cool grass and let my mind wander. I thought about that underground map room with its diagram of the broadcast network. There was nothing top secret about the disc locations, but seeing them charted in an enemy bunker made me nervous. Those discs served as the Unified Authority’s nervous system. An attack on them could bring the Republic to its knees.

  But why would anybody want to bring the Republic to its knees? The Senate allowed member states tremendous latitude. Breaking up U.A. infrastruc
ture would end the ties of humanity that connected the various territories. Take away the Unified Authority, and the outer worlds would be forced to survive on their own.

  In my mind’s eye, I saw myself walking along a long corridor. Imagination turned into fitful dreams as I reached the first door.

  Night had fallen by the time Lee woke me for guard duty. He led me to the edge of town and pointed to an overturned truck. “That’s your station for the night,” he said. He slipped me a packet of speed tabs. “I borrowed these from the medic. Don’t use them unless you need them,” he said. I took my position hiding behind a crumpled-up bumper. Though I needed more sleep, I liked the solitary feel of guard duty. It gave me a chance to consider the day and play with ideas in my head. I had been on duty for two hours when Lector came to check on me. “See anything, Harris?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Keep alert,” he said. He lit a cigarette as he turned to leave.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. I was tired and angry. I heard myself speaking foolish words and knew that I would later regret them; but at that moment, I no longer cared. “What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  Lector listened to my question without turning to look at me. Then he whirled around. “You were made, Harris. That’s reason enough,” Lector said coldly. “Just the fact that you exist was enough to get Marshall, Saul, and me transferred to this for-shit outfit.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” I said.

  “You had everything to do with it,” Lector said. “You think this is a real mission? You think we are going to capture this entire planet with twenty-three hundred Marines? Is that what you think?”

  I did not know what to say.

  “They’d forgotten about us,” Lector said. “Saul, Marshall, me . . . Nobody in Washington knew that there were any Liberators left. The brass knew about Shannon, but there was nothing anybody could do about him. Klyber kept him nearby, kept a watchful eye on him. Nobody could touch Shannon with Klyber guarding him. As far as everybody knew, Shannon was the last of us.

  “Then you came along, Harris—a brand-new Liberator. You weren’t alone, you know. Klyber made five of you. We found the others. Marshall killed one in an orphanage. I killed three of them myself. But Klyber hid you . . . sent you to some godforsaken shit hill where no one would find you. By the time I did locate you, you were already on the Kamehameha .

  “I . . .” I started to speak.

  “Shut up, Harris. You asked what’s bothering me, now I’m going to tell you. And you, you are going to shut your rat’s ass mouth and listen, or I will shoot you. I will shoot you and say that the goddamn Japanese shot you.”

  I believed him and did not say a word. I also slipped my finger over the trigger of my M27.

  “The government hated Liberators. Congress wanted us dead. As far as anyone knew, we were all dead. Then you showed up. I heard about that early promotion and wanted to fly out and cap you on that shit hill planet. I would have framed Crowley, but Klyber transferred you before I could get there.

  “Next thing I know, you’re running missions for that asshole Huang. Shit! Huang was the reason we were in hiding in the first place. As soon as I heard that you’d met Huang, I knew we were all dead. Once he got a whiff of a Liberator, he would go right back to the Pentagon and track down every last one of us.

  “And here we are, trying to take over a planet with twenty-three hundred Marines. This isn’t a mission, Harris, this is a cleansing. This is the last march of the Liberators; and if they need to kill off twenty-three hundred GI clones to finish us, it all works out fine on their balance sheets. Clones are expendable.

  “You want to know what I have against you, Harris? You are the death of the Liberators.”

  “Oh,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Now watch your post,” Lector spoke in a calm voice that made his anger all the more frightening.

  “We’re pushing into that valley tomorrow. Whoever we’re hunting on this goddamned planet, we’ll find them in there.” Having said his piece, Lector turned his back on me and left. He tossed the butt of his cigarette behind him. The tiny, glowing ember bounced and slowly faded. Klyber had made five Liberators? Klyber had me sent to Gobi to protect me? It made sense, I suppose. When I thought of Booth Lector, I felt both sympathy and revulsion.

  Tabor Shannon and Booth Lector shared the same neural programming, but it controlled them in different ways. Lector was addicted to violence and self-preservation. He was cruel and brooding. Shannon might have been a white knight, but I saw him as flawed. He lived his entire life on a quixotic mission to protect a society that despised him.

  Earlier that evening, I had told myself that the Unified Authority bound mankind together. However, as I thought about it again, I questioned the benefits of being tied to mankind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Having slept for approximately two hours over the last two days, I felt sluggish and dizzy when Vince Lee led me back to camp. The ground seemed to shift under my feet, and I had trouble walking in a straight line. I considered taking the meds Lee had given me, but decided against it. Luding would keep me awake, but it would probably leave me jumpy when I needed a clear head. And I definitely needed a clear head. The officers monitoring our progress from aboard the Kamehameha did not wait for sunrise before sending us into the valley. There was no trace of sunrise along the horizon when we grabbed our rifles and set off.

  Walking in squads of five, we left the town and started into the valley. There the terrain came as something of a surprise. I expected grass, trees, and gently sloping hills. What I saw was a glacial canyon with steep, craggy walls. A well-trampled path led along the side of the canyon. The trail was wide enough for a squad or maybe a platoon, but not an entire regiment.

  Observing the scene from the rim of the canyon, using my night-for-day lenses, I felt an eerie shutter of déjà vu. It was like returning to Hubble. The thick layer of fog on the canyon floor only added to the illusion.

  “At least we won’t need to go looking for the bastards,” Captain McKay said as he moved up beside me.

  Switching to heat vision, I saw what he meant. About two miles ahead of us, hundreds, maybe thousands, of orange dots milled around the valley floor.

  “Look at them,” I said. “Think that’s what’s left of the Japanese?”

  “Obviously not,” McKay said. “Whoever they are, they’re waiting for us. They’re dug in tight, armed, and waiting for us. Remember when I asked you to watch my back? I know you’re beat, Harris, but if you have any Liberator fire left in you, get me out of this alive.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, though I had little hope to offer. If Lector planned on killing friendlies, his first bullet would have my name on it.

  Our assault took place in three stages. As the sun rose over the far edge of the canyon, we “assembled.”

  Our officers, the few who had survived the previous day’s snipers, surveyed the field and assigned routes to each platoon. From there, as the rising sun melted the fog on the canyon floor, we traveled down the steep walls. That was the next stage of the assault, the “attack point.” Then we fell into formation and made our last preparations.

  The terrain was flat and empty. Jeeps, ATVs, and tanks would have been effective at that point, but nobody offered to airlift them in. Admiral Thurston wanted an infantry strike. With our light artillery preparing its positions, we started our advance.

  A wide river must have once run across the valley. Its long, smooth, fossilized trail offered excellent placement for men with mortars.

  Having left the artillery behind, we divided into two groups. The majority of the men formed a column that would attack the squatters head-on. One lone platoon would be assigned to move along the south side of the canyon and attempt to flank the enemy.

  I was not surprised when I heard from Captain McKay. “Harris, your platoon is covering the flank.”

  “Who signed us up for that?” I asked, though
I knew the answer.

  “Lector recommended you. He’s pretty much running this show. Everybody is afraid of him.”

  “Are you coming with us?” I asked.

  “No,” McKay said. He wished me luck and signed off.

  A pregnant silence filled the canyon as the two-thousand-man column started forward. The squatters began firing long before the column was in range. Only snipers with special rifles would be effective at such a distance. The squatters had a few snipers, of course, but they seemed to be out of commission at the moment.

  My platoon started its route just as our artillery units began lobbing mortars. The enemy had the tactical advantage of choosing the field, but our artillery soon battered their positions. I led my men in a fast trot toward the south edge of the canyon. Hidden by a slope in the terrain, we slipped forward undetected. As we closed in, I hid behind some sagebrush and spied on the enemy position.

  The main column remained just out of range as the bombardment continued. Shells exploded, sending swirls of silt dust and smoke in the air. Any moment now the shelling would stop, signaling the column to pin the enemy down while we closed in beside them.

  Before we could attack, the squatters retreated. They abandoned their position and ran. I watched them from behind a sagebrush blind—thousands of men running toward distant canyon walls. I thought they were running from our mortars, but that wasn’t the case.

  Far overhead, another battle was taking place. Robert Thurston, the master tactician, had lied to us about everything. These “squatters” were Mogat Separatists; and while Little Man was not exactly Morgan Atkins’s Mecca, the planet was a Separatist stronghold.

  Giving us bad intelligence, Thurston landed our forces by the Mogats’ weakest flank. With minimal air support and the element of surprise, we broke their defenses and chased their unprepared army. But reinforcements would soon arrive. Admiral Thurston, who viewed clones as equipment of no more value than bullets or tank treads, used us as bait to lure the Separatists into a counterattack. As we chased Mogats on the surface of Little Man, four self-broadcasting battleships appeared around the Kamehameha . Thurston barely managed to raise his shields before they opened fire. With the dreadnoughts battering her shields, the Kamehameha headed toward a nearby moon.