The Clone Republic Page 8

  “All accounted for.”

  Though I had not been told that these men were pilots, I had no trouble identifying them. Pilots were natural-born and came in various shapes and sizes. Being officers, they also did not carry duffel bags. You’d never see officers washing their own laundry or carrying their own bags. They left such menial tasks to enlisted men.

  “I am Lieutenant Commander Mack Callahan,” the lieutenant commander said as his new pilots stepped forward. “I run the fighter squads on this bucket.” He approached one of the pilots and read the name tag on his uniform. “Where were you stationed last, Jordan?”

  “Mars, sir.”

  “Mars?” Callahan nodded his head. “Some of you flew in from Orion? Long flight. I’ll tell you what, Jordan, why don’t you and the boys unpack, get plenty of rest, and report to my briefing room in thirty minutes.” The pilots groaned, then followed Callahan off deck.

  The captain stepped forward. “At ease.” He reviewed at our ranks. “I am Captain Gaylan McKay.”

  From the side of my eye, I watched the pilots vanish down a gleaming hallway. I did not see so much as a finger smudge on the walls. Every light in every ceiling fixture shone brightly, and the floors sparkled. Captain McKay looked as if he had been polished, too. He was small for a Marine, certainly no more than five feet six inches tall with a wiry build. A strip of blond stubble covered the top of his head, and the sides were shaved clean. He had more of a smirk than a smile, but I liked the informal way in which he appraised us. He’d probably be a prick most of the time, but that came with the uniform.

  “I’ll take you to your quarters.” As we followed McKay down the hall, he continued his orientation.

  “You boys are lucky,” McKay said. “Marines get a good shake in this fleet. Admiral Klyber doesn’t play favorites with pilots and sailors. Sea-soldier chow is as good as any on this ship.”

  McKay led us to a series of cabins in which bunk beds lined the walls. Reading from a list, McKay sent men to various barracks; but when he came to Lee and me, he said, “Let’s talk in my office. Harris, I’ll start with you.”

  He led me through an empty barrack. “Throw your bags on any rack.”

  I dropped my bags on the nearest bunk.

  “Is your gear in working order, Corporal?” McKay asked.

  No one had asked me about the condition of my armor since the battle on Gobi, nor had I thought about it. “No, sir,” I said. “The interLink is out in my helmet.”

  “Bring it along, Harris,” McKay called over his shoulder as he walked off. I quickly snatched my helmet and followed the captain down the hall. He entered a small office. I stepped in after him.

  “Take a seat, Corporal,” McKay said.

  “We’re starting up a new platoon. Your sergeant arrives tomorrow. He’s transferring in from the Inner SC Fleet,” McKay said with emphasis, as if that sector should have meant something to me. It didn’t.

  “Admiral Klyber believes that something is going to break loose in outer Scutum-Crux.”

  McKay waited for me to respond. When I said nothing, he picked up my personnel file and began reading.

  He turned a few pages, reading quickly, apparently taking in the details. “Ah yes, I remember your record. You were the one who made corporal in three months . . . Must be some kind of a record. Exactly what sort of meritorious service did you perform on Gobi?” As he asked, McKay closed the folder and watched me carefully.

  “Terrorists attacked our outpost, sir. I . . .”

  “Attacked an outpost? Were you working out of an embassy?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “You mentioned a problem with your helmet.”

  “Yes, sir. My interLink equipment failed during the battle.”

  “I don’t know who designed this shit, but you can always count on something breaking when you need it most. My visor went black during a firefight, and I nearly shot my commanding officer.” McKay smiled as if thinking about what might have been, then continued in a more businesslike tone. “Around here you turn your headgear in for routine maintenance after every battle. Fleet policy. We take maintenance seriously in this fleet. Show up for an engagement with a broken helmet, and you’ll be lucky if the enemy gets you before I do. Got that, Corporal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can bring your helmet back from battles melted to your head if you like. That’s your business. But show up with broken gear, and I’ll send you to the brig.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Corporal, in case you have not guessed, showing up to new assignments with busted gear makes a bad first impression.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Leave the helmet; I’ll requisition repairs.” Changing subjects, McKay pointed to the Scutum-Crux Arm insignia on the wall behind him—a fleet of ships in silhouette superimposed against the whirlpool shape of the Milky Way. “You have been assigned to the flagship of the Outer SC Fleet, Corporal. We don’t put up with sloppiness on this ship.”

  He handed me a three-inch stack of papers. “Get this read ASAP. That will be all.”

  Without looking up, McKay added, “Send in Corporal Lee.”

  Until Amos Crowley’s visit, the U.A. Marines maintained Gobi Station with forty-one men, one man shy of a full platoon. The bowels of the Kamehameha housed two full divisions of Marines—over twenty-three hundred of the Republic’s finest.

  Bryce Klyber’s authority extended beyond the ship and even the fleet; every unit in the Scutum-Crux Arm was under his command. He was the only officer in the U.A. Navy to hold the rank of fleet admiral, a rank generally reserved for wartime.

  Captain Thaddeus Olivera commanded the Kamehameha, and Vice Admiral Absalom Barry commanded the Outer Scutum-Crux Fleet. Klyber, who I soon learned was a notorious microcommander, preferred to work out of an office on the ship so that he could observe operations firsthand.

  There were three fleets in the Scutum-Crux Arm, placing more than one thousand ships, more ships than the Earth Fleet, under Klyber’s command. That did not mean he could stage a revolution. Unlike Caesar, crossing the Rubicon line as he brought his forces into Rome, Klyber would never be able to bring his fleet to Earth. Klyber’s Rubicon was the Mars discs of the Broadcast Corridor, which were too small to receive or send capital ships such as fighter carriers and destroyers. The Broadcast Corridor ensured that Klyber’s ships remained in place. Without the discs, it would take a thousand lifetimes to fly from Scutum-Crux to the Sol System in the Orion Arm.

  The documentation McKay gave me described the protocol and command structure of the Outer SC

  Fleet. Most of the information was standard procedure, but I needed to re-learn standard procedures and chain of command after three months on Gobi. Judging by the way Klyber ran the Scutum-Crux territories, he was the kind of commander who required his subordinates to march to his own drum. As a young Marine, I did not know much about Navy workings. It struck me as odd that Klyber, supposedly a powerful admiral, retained an old ship like the Kamehameha for his flagship. The Kamehameha might have worked well as Klyber’s movable command post, but it was obsolete as a fighter carrier. Klyber built each of his three fleets around a core of twelve fighter carriers. The Kamehameha was an old Expansion-class carrier, the only carrier of its class that was still in operation. All of the other carriers were Perseus-class, a newer breed of brute measuring forty-five hundred feet long and almost fifty-one hundred feet wide—nearly twice as long as their Expansion-class predecessors. Perseus-class carriers bore a complement of eleven thousand Marines, five times the fighting force that traveled on the Kamehameha . Perseus-class carriers stowed three times more tanks, transports, gunships, and fighters than Expansion-class carriers and had much quicker means for deploying units.

  Lee and I spent our first night in half-empty barracks. Ten of the men assigned to our platoon had trickled in throughout the day, but most of the racks remained empty. Huddled in my bunk, I quietly read Scutum-Crux Fleet documentati
on well into the sleep period. Along with command structure and regulations, the documentation also laid out our daily regiment. Klyber expected his grunts to drill three hours per day, holding physical training, marksmanship drills, and practical simulations into the daily routine. After reading these daily requirements I sighed, and whispered, “Harris, you’re a long, long way from Gobi.”

  Lee, laid out on the bunk next to mine, rolled to face me, and asked, “Wayson, what are you doing?”

  “Reading regs,” I said. “You finished reading already?”

  “I don’t need to read them,” Lee said. “We had the exact same regulations at my last post. I was already under Klyber’s command.”

  Travel had warped my internal timetable. Late as it was, I did not have a prayer of falling asleep. “I think I’m still on Earth time,” I said, though I had no idea what time it might be back at the orphanage.

  “I’m having trouble sleeping myself,” Lee admitted. He rolled over on his side and checked his wristwatch, then quietly cursed. “Tell you what, you want to go have a look around the ship?” he asked.

  “We can do that?” I asked.

  “Damn, Harris! You’re not in boot camp. Nobody cares what corporals do after hours,” Lee said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of his bunk.

  “Boot camp wasn’t that long ago,” I admitted. “After basic I got sent to a planet called Gobi. Regulations didn’t matter much there. I don’t want to screw up.”

  “Okay, on behalf of Fleet Admiral Klyber, I formally give you permission to climb out of your bunk. You may grab a bite to eat, visit the bar, or have a look around the ship. Just keep out of restricted areas,”

  Lee said as he pulled on his pants.

  After numbing my brain with rules and command structure, the idea of a late-night walk sounded good. We got dressed and slipped out of the barracks. The ship had an eerie, abandoned feel to it. The hall lights burned as brightly as they did during the day, but the only footsteps we heard were mostly our own. I peered through the window of our chow area as we passed. The lights were turned low. Tables that had been crowded with Marines a few hours earlier now sat empty.

  Our barracks and training areas were located amidships on one of the lower decks of the Kamehameha

  , not all that far from the docking bay. In the time that I had been on board, I had only seen the landing bay, the barracks, and the mess area. Lee, who had never served aboard that particular ship but had a working knowledge of carriers, had no problem conducting an impromptu tour. We passed armories, a library, and file rooms—all populated with skeleton crews. At three in the morning, even the bars sat empty. Lee led me to an elevator, and we went up three floors to the crew area. “This area is not restricted, but don’t expect to spend much time up here,” Lee said, as we stepped off the lift. “Sailors think of us as cargo.”

  It hadn’t taken me long to strike up a friendship with Lee. After Gobi, I was glad to meet a Marine who stowed his gear properly and cut his hair to regulation. Like the clones back in Orphanage #553, Lee had created his own kind of personality. He did not know he was a clone, of course; and he thought one day he might be bootstrapped into the ranks of the officers. From there, he wanted to enter politics. It was hopeless, of course. He was a clone; and because the Unified Authority did not recognize the potential of its own synthetic creations, Lee would never be promoted past master sergeant. Unlike our barracks, the crew area showed signs of life. Duty officers patrolled the halls. We passed a mess area that smelled of fried eggs and meat. I peered in the door and saw sailors hunched over trays. A little farther, we passed a rec room with game tables, card tables, and a bar. I saw the marquee of a movie theater along the back wall. At that early hour, the recreation center sat empty and dark, but I could imagine it filled with lights and sounds and people during the early evening.

  “They have a movie theater in there,” I complained. “I’ll bet my next paycheck that our rec doesn’t have a theater.”

  “That’s a good way to go bankrupt,” Lee said. “Congress spares no expense when it comes to keeping its Marines entertained.”

  “You boys looking for something?” We turned around as a sailor approached us.

  “We’re new on the ship,” Lee said. “Just having a look around.”

  The sailor was a clone, a petty officer with a single red chevron on his sleeve. He bore no more authority than Lee or I; but we were on his turf. “You must be new. This here is the crew area. We stow Marines below,” he sneered. He grabbed Lee by the arm, then took a quick step back. Lee’s arms and chest were thick with muscle.

  “Didn’t mean to intrude,” Lee said with an easy smile as he turned back toward the elevator. “Not very hospitable. I thought we were all fighting on the same side.”

  Then Lee said something under his breath that struck me as very odd. “Specking clone.”

  I had only met Vince Lee earlier that day when he and I went to explore the Kamehameha, so I did not notice the anomaly then. With time I would notice that though he was friendly and outgoing with me, Lee did not socialize with the other men in our platoon. He and I normally found a table off on our own. When Lee bought drinks, he purchased Earth-made beer. An avid bodybuilder, he asked for permission to work out in the officers’ gym. In fact, he had as little contact as possible with other clones. No enlisted man saw himself as a clone, though most of them were indeed just that. Even so, antisyntheticism was rare among clones because they were raised with other clones, and the only people they knew growing up were clones. They did not know how to associate with natural-born people. But Lee, Lee was different. Like so many U.A. citizens, Vince Lee was quietly prejudiced against clones. He thought clones were beneath him. The difference was that other people were natural-born, Vince was synthetic. Many officers were antisynthetic; they despised their underlings. Vince was different. He despised his own kind.

  The rest of the platoon arrived the following afternoon. That included our new sergeant—Tabor Shannon. As Vince might have put it, life aboard the Kamehameha became less “hospitable” the moment Shannon arrived.

  Master Gunnery Sergeant Tabor Shannon landed on a late-afternoon shuttle. Shannon was the personification of the word “paradox.” He was gruff, ruthless, and often profane. He openly favored the men who transferred in with him and even referred to them as “my men” because they came with him from his previous platoon. He was a belligerent and battle-hardened Marine. But I soon found out that Shannon’s sense of duty added oddly smoothed edges to the jagged shards of his personality. Captain McKay sent Lee and me to meet Shannon and the other men at the landing bay. We rushed down to the boarding zone. As the bay door opened, Lee said, “I bet he’s a prick. What do you want to bet he’s a real prick among men?”

  We watched several officers disembark. Four pilots and a number of crewmen breezed past us without so much as a sideward glance. Shannon came next. He was tall and thin, with steep shoulders and a wiry frame. His fine white hair, the hair of an old man, did not match his sunburned face. Except for crow’s-feet and white hair, he looked like a thirty-year-old.

  Shannon walked up to us and paused long enough to bark, “Twelfth Platoon, you part of my outfit?”

  When we nodded, he dropped his bags at our feet, and said, “Stow these on my rack.”

  Under other circumstances that kind of arrogance pissed me off, but I had noticed something about Shannon’s bags that left me too stunned to care. Lee saw it, too. The letters “GCF” were stenciled large and red on the side of the bag. When I was growing up, every kid in the orphanage knew what those letters stood for—Galactic Central Fleet. That was a name with a dark history. “You don’t think he’s a Liberator?” I asked.

  “Damn, I heard that they were all dead,” Lee said, staring at Shannon’s back as he left the bay. Watching Shannon disappear down the corridor, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine.

  The truth was that I did not know much about the Galactic Central Fleet or
the special strain of clones that were created to fight in it. The history books called them “Liberators,” but that was mostly because calling them “Butchers” seemed disrespectful.

  The government deemed the battles in the Galactic Central War classified information and never released accounts of what took place. But the government could not classify the events that led up to war. Unified Authority ships began prospecting the “eye” of the galaxy—the nexus where the various arms of the Milky Way meet in a spiral—about forty years ago. That was during the height of the expansion. We had long suspected that we had the galaxy to ourselves, and exploration into the farthest and deepest corners of the frontier only increased the belief that the universe belonged to mankind. By this time we had traveled to the edge of the Milky Way but not to the center.

  The media covered every detail of that first expedition to the center of the Galaxy, including its disastrous ending. Five self-broadcasting Pioneer-class vessels were sent. All five disappeared upon arrival in the Galactic Eye.

  There was no information about what happened to the ships. Some people speculated that radiation or possibly some unknown element destroyed them as they emerged from their broadcast. The most common theory, of course, was that the expedition was attacked, but whatever really became of those ships happened so quickly that no information was relayed back to Earth. If the politicians and military types knew more than the general public, they did not let on.

  Congress went into an emergency session and commissioned a special fleet to investigate—the Galactic Central Fleet, the largest and most-well-armed fleet in U.A. Naval history. The hearings and the creation of the Galactic Central Fleet were matters of public record. Reporters were taken out to the shipyards where the fleet’s 200 cruisers, 200 destroyers, and 180 battleships were under construction. It took three years to build the fleet. During that time, the entire Republic braced for an alien attack. Once the fleet was constructed, however, the news accounts stopped. This much I knew—that the Galactic Central Fleet was launched on February 5, 2455, and that it vanished. The ships were sent to the Galactic Eye and never heard from again.