Rogue clone (15 page)

“Guess I’m headed to Earth to have a look at their farm,” I said. “You coming?”

Freeman nodded. “The only time I’ve ever seen Boyd clones was after you got through with them. It’d be interesting to see one that is still breathing.”

General Alexander Smith, secretary of the Air Force and ranking member of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, stands in front of an electronic display board holding a laser pointer. Like most of the
members of the Joint Chiefs, Smith is in his sixties, a short man with a medium build and graying
hair. His mustache covers the entire length of his upper lip.

The display board is an old-fashioned two-dimensional model, strictly low-tech. How he smuggled
such an antique into the Dry Docks is beyond me, but there is no way this is Golan equipment. All
of the big corporations gave up on 2-D displays long before this facility was built.
The summit takes place around a U-shaped table that is fifty feet long. Only generals and
admirals sit at this table. Staffs members sit behind them in chairs set against the wall.
At the moment, General Smith’s 2-D display shows a diagram of the galaxy. Large red circles
appear in several areas of the diagram. The general turns and points at them.

“As you know, we have engaged enemy troops in the following locations.” He points to the
circles. “The Mogats seem to have set up power bases here . . .” He points at the lower flank of
the outer Cygnus Arm. “Here . . .” He circles a parallel segment on the Perseus Arm. “And
throughout these portions of Scutum-Crux.”

Smaller red splotches appear throughout the map. “The Mogats have free access throughout the
galaxy. These are hotspots for spying and illegal activity. The only red zones in the Orion Arm are
the planets New Columbia and Olympus Kri.”

Three of the galactic arms turn bright green. “The Cygnus, Perseus, and Scutum-Crux Arms have
declared independence and formed the Organization of Confederate Arms. The Norma Arm has
also declared independence. From what we can tell, this arm has ejected all Mogat colonists and
is not a member of the OCS.

“Only the Orion and Sagittarius Arms have remained loyal; and in all candor, the U.A.
government is funding an all-out covert war in Sagittarius that is costing us trillions of dollars.
That’s the bad news.”

The colored areas vanish from the display, leaving a white and blue-black map of the stars. “The
pink areas represent the territories in which our enemies currently enjoy military superiority.”

All of the men in the room laugh. There are no pink areas.

With the introductions and joking out of the way, General Smith suddenly turns serious. “About
three weeks ago, Air Force intelligence intercepted the message, ‘Alterations complete. Will test in
NGC three thousand six hundred and twelve.’

“Obviously, we had no way of knowing what the message meant then.”

“NGC,” Klyber calls out, “Norma Galactic Center?”

“Correct,” Smith says with a slight bow. “NGC did indeed refer to the inner curve of the Norma
Arm, an unpopulated sector of the galaxy.” He walks to the edge of the dais, his eyes still focused
on Admiral Klyber. “Care to venture a guess as to their usage of
alterations
or
three thousand six hundred and twelve
?’” There is nothing confrontational in the way he does this. This is a friendly
challenge between two fellow officers.

“It sounds like a date,” Klyber says, shaking his head and sitting back in his seat.

“You missed your calling, Bryce,” says Smith. “You should have been in intelligence. You would
have really risen up the ranks.”

This comment gets scattered laughs as Klyber is the highest ranking officer in any branch.

“We do not have any outposts in the central part of the Norma Arm, it’s just too remote. We do,
however, have an experimental radar station. This is what that radar readout looked like nine
days ago—March 6, 2512.”

The screen turns flat black with concentric rings marking distances from the radar station. Except
for the wand effect of the screen refreshing itself, the screen remains still and black for several
seconds. When the radar wand finishes its third sweep, a litter of dots appear in one small section
of the screen.

The wand sweeps by refreshing the radar reading every thirty seconds and the dots do not move.
They stay in place for sixteen complete sweeps of the wand, a total of eight minutes. Eight
minutes pass and the next pass of the wand reveals that the dots are gone. They vanished without
a trace. The wand sweeps on, but the radar reading remains clear.

“Do we have a more detailed reading, sir?” asks Admiral Brocius. “I’d like to see an analysis of
that.”

“This radar reading was taken over a four-million-mile distance. I’m afraid the ship designs and
serial numbers were out of focus,” General Smith quips. “The best we could do was dots.”

The patch with the dots reappears, then grows until it fills the entire screen. The dots look like a
clutch of glowing eggs laid across a black surface in no particular order.

“There are precisely five hundred and seventy-six dots in this picture,” Smith says. “There were
five hundred eighty ships in the Galactic Central Fleet—”

“Admiral Thurston shot down four of the Galactic Central destroyers during the battle at Little
Man,” Huang interrupts, standing up as he speaks. Sitting behind Huang, Leonid Johansson nods
complacently, as if he has some ownership in that victory.

Once I notice Johansson, I turn my attention to the wall behind Klyber. Halverson is sitting behind
Klyber taking careful notes. Beside him sits an officer I do not know . . . could be the ill-fated
Major Burns for all I know. Each officer attending the summit has three aides. The last seat
behind Klyber must have been Captain Johansson’s. It now sits empty.

“That would mean that every last ship was up and running,” an Air Force general I do not
recognize calls out.

“Why not?” Huang shoots back, still standing, “they’ve had more than forty years to tune them
up.”

“Admiral Huang makes a good point,” says Admiral Brocius.

As the inertia of this discussion builds up among the other officers, Admiral Klyber leans back in
his chair and mumbles something to Halverson. The way Klyber leans back and the sly smile on
his face suggest that he is telling the rear admiral a joke, but the startled look on Halverson’s face
is anything but amused.

“Those ships are antiques. They belong in a museum,” the unidentified Air Force general
responds.

“I wish I shared your confidence,” General Smith says in a raised voice, trying to arrest control of
the floor.

“Come on, Alex . . . one sighting in two years . . . Before that it was forty years,” the unidentified
Air Force general replies.

The board behind General Smith clears itself and turns into a map of the Scutum-Crux Arm.

“There have been eighteen sightings of those ships in the last three days. They appeared here,
here, and here . . .”

“That’s only a few million miles from the Scutum-Crux Fleet,” Huang says in astonishment.

“Perhaps they plan to engage Admiral Thurston.”

“Yeah, too bad your boy missed them,” The unidentified Air Force general taunts Huang.
Rear Admiral Robert Thurston, sitting quietly in a corner in the back of the room, says nothing.
He is a quiet, deliberate man. He has red spiky hair and the face of a high school student. His
short waif ’s physique adds to the illusion that he is a boy just out of secondary school.

“Don,” General Smith says, turning toward his fellow Air Force man, “we have a radar record of
three hundred ships appearing within six hundred thousand miles of your base. They come in,
reprogram their broadcasting computers, and flash out. One theory is that they are testing our
level of preparedness.”

“It looks like those old ships are flying circles around you boys,” says an Army officer. It is easy
for him to talk. His forces aren’t expected to guard open space.

“You cannot possibly expect us to patrol every inch of space,” Don says, now sounding defensive.

“We’ve got a bigger problem than that,” says Smith. “Whatever fleet this is, it has an uncanny
awareness of our movements.”

Earthdate: March 16, 2512 A.D.

City: Honolulu; Planet: Earth; Galactic Position:

Orion Arm

The last time I flew into Hawaii, I was a young sergeant in the Marines on leave. I played like a kid, swam in the ocean like a kid, and had a meaningless romance with a girl whom I could only describe as ornamental. Within a month of returning to duty, I landed on Little Man. After seeing the massacre on Little Man, I would never be a boy again. Looking back, I see my stay in Hawaii as the last chapter in my youth.

I did not fly directly from the Dry Docks to Earth. As a Liberator, I was not allowed to enter the Orion Arm and I did not want to take the chance of attracting attention.

Having a self-broadcasting ship allowed me to bypass the broadcast network and Mars security. I broadcasted myself to the “dark side” of the solar system, the spot exactly opposite Mars in its orbit. That left me with nearly one hundred million miles to fly to reach Earth—twenty hours of travel at the Starliner’s top non-atmospheric speed was five million miles per hour. Even more hours of flying awaited me once I entered Earth’s atmosphere. The Starliner had a top speed of three thousand miles per hour in atmospheric conditions. The Mach 3 speed limit was a convention imposed throughout the Unified Authority.

“Harris, you there?” Ray Freeman’s voice sounded on my mediaLink.

“Yeah. I’m here,” I said. I had been watching the summit and was lost in the politics of it. Hearing Freeman’s voice brought me back to the real world. “Are you in Hawaii yet?”

“Not yet.”

“When you went to Little Man, were you hunting Mogats?” Freeman asked.

“That’s what they told us,” I said. “This about your family?”

“What do you think the Navy will do if they find neo-Baptists there?”

“It’s a valuable planet,” I said. “There aren’t many planets capable of sustaining life without engineering. At the very least they will consider them squatters. How many people are there?”

“About one hundred,” Freeman said.

“That’s tiny. The Navy may not even notice them,” I said.

“They noticed them,” Freeman said. “My father contacted me. He said that they’re sending a carrier to review the situation.”

“Know which one?” I asked.

“The Grant, I think. Does it matter?”

“It might if it’s the Grant. Remember Vince Lee?” Vince was my best friend when I was a Marine. I had not talked with him since going AWOL. “He’s an officer on the Grant.”

“Lee?” Freeman said, not making a connection.

“You tried to kill him once,” I said. “You paid him a few bucks to wear my helmet without telling him there was an assassin looking for me.”

“Yeah,” Freeman said.

“He’s a fair man,” I said. “I’ve met the captain of that ship, too . . . Pollard. Both good men. They’ll give your father a fair shake. They might tell them to leave, but they won’t be harsh about it. Hell, once they know the colony doesn’t pose a threat, they may choose to ignore it. How long ago did they make contact?”

“A day or two.”

“Well, they won’t get there anytime soon. It takes a long time to travel to Little Man. The nearest broadcast disc is several days away.”

Freeman and I spoke for a few more minutes, then he signed off. I leaned back in my chair to watch more of the summit. I had ninety-five million miles to go, time was on my side.

“The GC Fleet’s movements show an increasing amount of sophistication,” General Smith says
as a new set of circles appear on the screen behind him. “In the radar reading from Central
Norma, they appear to have been testing their ability to broadcast. That was the first reading that
we took. The ships broadcasted in, they remained perfectly still for eight minutes, and they left.
From what we can tell, they remained just long enough to generate the power they needed to
broadcast out.”

“Eight minutes between broadcasts?” Klyber asks, unconsciously using a voice that is just loud
enough to catch everyone’s attention. “That hardly seems possible.”

“Bryce?” Smith asks. “Did you say something?”

“The broadcast generators on those ships should take fifteen minutes to build up enough energy
for a broadcast,” Klyber says. He looks and sounds deeply concerned. Seeing this, I wonder how
long it takes the
Doctrinaire
to charge up and broadcast.

“You will recall the intercepted message—‘alterations complete,’” says General Smith. “We
believe they have updated their equipment.”

“What’s the problem, Admiral Klyber?” Huang calls. He is sitting directly across from Klyber;
now the two officers face each other. “How long does it take the generators on the
Doctrinaire
to power up for a broadcast?”

The floor of the summit goes silent. The atmosphere of that great chamber suddenly becomes a
vacuum of sound. Bryce Klyber turns his narrow, bony head toward Che Huang. Klyber is a fleet
admiral, the highest-ranking man in the Unified Authority Navy, but Admiral Che Huang is the
secretary of the Navy and a member of the Joint Chiefs. Klyber has powerful friends on Capitol
Hill. Huang has the backing of the Pentagon. Neither man is about to back down.