by Sonya Noble
Hawk and Shiloh’s bunk had matching green-camo bedspread, but Shiloh’s bottom bunk had an old paperback fiction book on it, and Hawk’s had a fashion holographic magazine on it.
“What? Even clones like fashion,” Hawk pointed out.
Pariah grinned and laughed along with her. It felt great to laugh with someone.
Tigress had a whole bunk to herself, and she used the bottom one for storing rocks, old grenades, three really old twentieth-century books that were surprisingly well-preserved, and a few newer twenty-fifth century holographic message holders.
Anaconda’s bed was one of the middle ones, next to Hope’s. It had a twenty-fourth century data holder and a few other odd gadgets that were taken apart and partially put back together.
There was a whole wall with rows of shelves and drawers where the girls held their clothes and equipment. They were all labeled, and some of the shelves were messier than others.
“So, pick your bed and your shelf,” Hawk said, walking away and hopping up and into her bed.
Pariah shrugged and picked the third bed in the middle, then unpacked her spare uniforms and a few small trinkets, putting the clothes in the drawers and her small collection of rocks on a shelf.
“Is that what I think it is?” Anaconda asked, walking over to examine one of Pariah’s small rocks. “Where did you find this?”
“In the quarry that they took us to sometimes,” Pariah said. “Did they make you do the quarry mission?”
“Ugh, you mean the one where you have to capture a flag and take out your commanding officers as well?” Hawk asked.
“Yeah, that one.” Pariah nodded.
“You found a diamond in the quarry?” Anaconda asked, incredulously.
“I take it you like rocks,” Pariah acknowledged, slowly.
“Well, considering a rock saved her life, yeah, she likes rocks,” Hope said, grinning.
“Seriously? What’d you do, hit the enemy with one?” Pariah asked.
“No…” Anaconda smiled sheepishly.
“Story time! Let us gather around the story weaver.” Hope sat down cross-legged on the floor and the other girls sat down next to her or on a close bed.
“I love this story,” Dreamer whispered to Pariah.
“Before I was put on Zeta Squad I belonged to an elite group of demolitions experts,” Anaconda began.
“They have teams of demolitions experts and nobody told me about it?” Pariah interrupted.
“They discontinued the program when two of the teams never came back,” Hawk explained.
“It was one of the few co-ed things, because not every girl can carry two hundred pounds on their backs for two hundred miles,” Anaconda said, smiling wistfully. “Lugging your equipment everywhere, poking your nose in a metaphorical hornets’ nest, and getting out in the nick of time before everything went boom.”
“Now they just send in us clones to do their dirty work,” Tigress spat.
“Anyway, keep going,” Peace said.
“Our mission was to blow up a lab on Mars that was a top secret ‘eyes-only’ thing,” Anaconda continued. “My team had gone in pairs, one person to set the charges and the other to be on a lookout for enemy troops.”
“Hold on, Pariah doesn’t know why you were sent to blow it up,” Hope pointed out.
“Oops! Sorry! It was a weapons research facility, but everyone in it had mysteriously disappeared. The team they’d sent before had reported every single one of the staff and faculty were dead. The recording showed them all being attacked by the alien species we now call ‘Martians’.”
“I thought that was just a rumor!” Pariah said excitedly.
“It’s supposed to be. That’s how good the military are at keeping secrets. They called it a hoax. May I get back to my story? The interruptions are getting annoying.” Anaconda looked around at all the girls with her hands on her hips in mock-annoyance.
“Right, sorry.” Pariah closed her mouth and listened intently.
“My partner was a boy a little older than me named Rocky. He got the fun job of keeping the supplies on board while I got the even funner job of driving.”
“Don’t ever let that girl get behind the wheel,” Hawk whispered to Pariah. “She is scary.”
“We snuck into the surrounding area and starting setting the charges. I was almost done with the last one when Rocky radioed for me to pull out. Being as stubborn as most clones are…” everyone snickered at that; it was a literal gene in their genetic makeup, “…I told him to be quiet so that I could finish my job and shut off my radio. As I crawled out of the tiny cave I was in a big, black, clay-like creature almost jumped on top of me! Rocky threw a boulder at the Martian and we ran back to the rendezvous point where everyone else was waiting.”
“They had to jump onto the ship before any more Martians came at them,” Tigress added.
“And they canceled the project after that mission,” Hope sighed.
“Apparently another team in South America had failed in their mission to take out an experiment gone wrong and was never heard from again,” Anaconda finished.
“Man. What experiment?” Pariah asked, curiously.
Hope exchanged a look with Hawk. “Top secret.”
“Oh.” Pariah pulled her knees up to her chin and they all sat in awkward silence.
“Oh yeah, guess what?” Dreamer said excitedly, breaking the silence.
“What?” they all asked her.
“I’m going to pull an all-nighter again, see if I can catch any of the officers on tape, who’s with me?”
They all raised their hands. Pariah smiled, happily. She had a funny feeling that they were all going to be great friends.
Chapter 4: Boys are Idiots
“Over here!” Anaconda whispered loudly, waving urgently at Pariah to join her on the ceiling beam. It was about 0300 hours and they were in the middle of a night drill.
Pariah stopped and looked up. Anaconda waved at her more insistently with the small pistol in her hand. Pariah sighed. Anaconda seemed to love high places, just like the snake she was named after.
Pariah looked around, but there wasn’t anything that she could stand on to climb up, so she’d have to wing it. She jumped up and grabbed the ceiling beam with one hand while holstering her own weapon. She then swung herself up and used her momentum to flip up onto the high beam. She leaned against the wall and regained her balance.
Anaconda pulled Pariah down and indicated the officers passing cautiously beneath them. Pariah was actually grateful for the high ceiling, it kept the two girls from being seen.
The ceiling beam was very wide, and was built in between three walls, above the entrance to the cafeteria.
She crouched next to Anaconda and gave the scarred girl a questioning look. Anaconda held a finger to her lips and jabbed her thumb at the small circular window next to them that let in filtered moon-light.
Pariah nodded and craned her neck for a better look. Her eyes widened and she held back a gasp as she took in the scene below.
There were ten or twelve cargo trucks, she couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, but they weren’t unloading weapons or supplies. Boys between the ages of thirteen and twenty came spilling out.
Pariah looked wide-eyed at Anaconda who looked just as surprised as herself. They both silently swung down without attracting the officers’ attention and ran to tell the others.
***
“Hey, guys, guess what?!” Peace yelled as she burst into the room.
“There’re guys here!” Angel cried.
“Young guys, too,” Hope said, grinning.
“Troops. Extremely young colonels, captains, lieutenants. Boys,” Shiloh said, shrugging her shoulders uninterestedly.
“Aw, come on, Shiloh, we know you like boys, just a little,” Dreamer teased.
“We’re being deployed,” Anaconda said, walking into the room.
“In a week,” Pariah finished, walking in behind Anaconda.
; “Did this news come before or after the boys’ arrival?” Hope asked.
“After. We ran into the General as we were running to tell you about the boys who just arrived here,” Pariah said, looking sideways at Anaconda.
The General had been walking down the hall as they’d been running down it and had almost barreled him over. They’d snapped an awkward salute and he’d given them the good news.
“Awesome,” Hawk said, excitedly.
“Finally, some action!” Tigress said enthusiastically.
***
Pariah wandered around the halls of the military base, bored and excited, the worst combination ever. Her squad was finally being deployed, but that was still four days away, which felt like an eternity, and she was itching for something to happen.
As she went through the various tunnels of the underground mountain base, she would stumble upon a door that practically screamed, “Open me!” and Pariah couldn’t resist. She discovered many places that were probably ‘red zones’ or 'off-limits' zones, and even found a room where some crazy-looking scientists with wild hair were studying a funny-looking green, lizard/humanoid creature.
“So they really do keep the aliens in the basement,” Pariah murmured amusedly, wandering to another door. She did this for a few more hours, exploring.
“Trooper,” Colonel White stopped her.
“Sir!” Pariah said, standing at attention.
“At ease. This is Lieutenant Jerold Tison. He’ll be leading Zeta Squad,” White said, introducing the boy standing next to him.
Pariah sized the L.T. up. He had some muscle, cinnamon-colored hair, blue eyes, cute smile, and was pretty tall. The boy was probably no more than sixteen.
“Permission to speak,” Pariah said.
“Granted,” said Tison.
“Here’s three rules: keep your hands off my girls, your hands off my food, and don‘t talk to me unless I‘ve had my coffee.” Pariah started to walk away when Tison put his hand on her shoulder.
“What about you?” he asked, smiling mischievously.
“Uh, Tison, I wouldn’t---” White began.
Tison was already on the floor with Pariah’s boot planted firmly on his chest.
“Okay, I get it!” Tison said, trying to squirm out from underneath a girl almost half his size.
Is that a hint of embarrassment I see on your face? Pariah thought, trying to keep the corners of her mouth from twitching. It wasn't everyday she got away with flipping a CO in front of a colonel.
“This here’s Pariah, the girl who put most of Beta Squad into the infirmary for a while,” White explained.
“Well, Pariah, will you please escort me to Zeta Squad’s barracks?” Tison asked, seemingly unfazed.
Pariah removed her boot from Tison’s chest, and he quickly stood up and dusted himself off.
“Well, trooper, I’ve studied your files extensively. You have a promising career ahead of you,” Tison complimented as they walked.
“Thanks,” Pariah grunted.
He chattered on, not waiting for Pariah to respond, about the weather, how long it’d taken them to get to the mountain, how boring it’d been, until the girl wanted to throw him out the window. And they passed many windows.
Boys, Pariah thought, rolling her eyes as she led him to her squad’s barracks. And I thought girls never stopped talking!
Before opening the door she knocked a few times, and got an answering knock that meant, ‘all clear, no one’s changing’.
The door slid open and she stepped inside, followed closely by their new ‘leader’.
Hope was technically the leader, she kept them all alive and made the ‘big important decisions’ for the squad. She probably wouldn’t be too happy about the intrusion on her girls.
“Guess what?” Pariah said.
“There’s a boy in the dorm!” Hope called.
“A boy? Let me at ‘im!” Tigress said, who was seriously itching for a fight.
“He’s the--”
“Lieutenant. ‘Leader’ of the mission,” Shiloh said, startling Pariah from behind.
“Would you stop spying on me?” Pariah exclaimed.
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist this time,” Shiloh said, unapologetically as the door slid shut behind them.
“Four rules,” Peace said.
“Keep your hands off us,” Hawk said.
“Your hands off our food,” Dreamer added.
“Don’t you dare speak to us before we’ve had our morning coffee,” Angel said.
“And don’t touch Pariah!” they all finished.
“He learned that one the hard way,” Pariah said, grinning.
“What if I want to touch her?” Tison asked, laying a hand on her back.
Pariah grabbed his hand and threw him into the door. Unfortunately, for the lieutenant, the door flew open just before he hit it and he crashed into the concrete wall opposite their room.
There were some other boys who were walking through the hall, and they all jumped as one of their own slammed into the wall.
“Are you okay?” one of them asked, awkwardly helping Tison up.
“Nothing broken,” Tison said, rubbing his shoulder.
“Except for your pride!” Pariah called.
All of Zeta Squad was on the floor, laughing.
“That’s what happens!” Tigress finally answered Tison's question.
“I really love that motion-sensor door!” Dreamer cried.
“Can you please explain why there are a bunch of girls laughing at you?” another boy asked as Tison limped to the infirmary.
“Inside joke,” Tison said, clenching his jaw. He had a new respect for the female gender. Specifically clones troopers.
Chapter 5: Private Mission
“Trooper zero-one-one-nine-four-six-eight,” Corporal Cortez called out.
How do they remember all that?
“We have something on the radar and want someone to check it out,” Cortez said, straightening his uniform.
“Distress or hostile?”
“Distress,” Cortez responded. “It looks like one of ours.”
“I’ll take back-up, just in case,” Pariah said as they reached the armory.
“This is more of a private, ‘get in get out’ mission,” Cortez said.
“I meant my baby,” Pariah said, slapping on her forest-green body-armor. Someone had actually developed armor that looked like the Spartan armor from an old twentieth-century video game, and had mass-produced it for the special clone troopers. It was only used for stealth and quick missions like this one. The only people who got to wear it 24/7 were the men.
Cortez tugged on his collar, embarrassed. “The battlefield is no place for an infant.”
“Try telling that to the people who send three-year-old clones out,” Pariah murmured.
“What?” Cortez asked.
Pariah took a big rocket launcher out of a locker. “This is my baby,” she said, pointing at it. Someone had even scratched in the words big baby into the side.
Cortez stared. The big gun was almost three-quarters her size.
“Of course,” he said, finding his voice again.
New guys! Pariah thought, choking down a snicker.
***
As soon as she’d slapped her helmet on, they sent her the coordinates and she was off. She took a hover scooter to the destination point and hid it in a big bush.
Pariah looked around, cautiously, and found a small campsite. There was the remains of a fire and a bedroll lay nearby. She even found the small electronic beacon that the distress call was coming from, but there weren’t any people around.
A twig snapped, and Pariah whipped around, drawing a battle-rifle as she searched the area for the source of the sound. Suddenly, someone came crashing down on her, and before she could react, they’d kicked her good and were back in the trees, using her shoulders for leverage.
Quickly recovering, she rolled into a crouch. Pariah hadn’t seen her attacker, but wh
oever it was, he was really strong! That was almost physically impossible…
“Hello?” she called, her voice synthesizer on, nicknamed the V/S. She sounded like a man to anyone outside of her helmet.
“Little small for a rescue party,” said a voice from behind.
Pariah jerked around. “They even take little boys as captains now, huh?” she said, indicating the captain insignia on the boy’s shoulder.
He was tall, but then again, most people were tall to her, except Pariah’s fellow thirteen-year-old clones. He had muscle, she gave him that, but was still kind of skinny, with red-gold hair and icy-blue eyes.
“It’s what you get when you‘re desperate for troops,” the boy said, shrugging. He was suddenly moving faster than most regular human beings could. Not very many clones could go that fast without intense training!
Pariah barely managed to block his next punch, and she was suddenly flying through the air. She landed with a loud thump!
She got up and managed to elbow the boy in the stomach. He let out a grunt and punched her jaw, sending her helmet flying off and herself sprawling to the ground. Pariah’s usually pinned-back hair cascaded around her shoulders and face, blinding her temporarily before she was rudely hauled up.
Pariah was suddenly face-to-face with the boy, a little too close for comfort, but she registered shock in his blue eyes before passing out.
***
Garn stared at the girl he’d just pounded. No wonder she was so small! She’d also sounded like a man, so she either had a scary-deep voice or her helmet had a voice synthesizer.
He checked her vital signs and breathed a sigh of relief. The girl was alive and breathing, just unconscious.
Garn found her helmet and heard the crackle of someone sending a message.
“…Trooper…found anyone…please respond…”
Better go wake her up!
Unfortunately for him, she was up, alert, and training a mean-looking rocket-launcher on him.
“Who are you?” the girl asked. She reminded Garn of a mythical dragon and he almost expected her to breath fire.
“Who are you?” she repeated, savagely, snapping the boy back to the present.
Definitely a voice synth, Garn thought. Her voice was a bit deep, but still had the female tone. It also had the hardness of years of military training, which was a bit puzzling, considering the fact that she couldn’t have been more than fifteen at the most. He dropped the helmet and held his hands up.