by Kent, Steven
The U.A.N. Washington had been one of the first ships in my fleet to go all-clone. The ship had also become a de facto transfer terminal. The self-broadcasting battleships sent transports filled with clones transferring to the Scutum-Crux Fleet to the Washington and received transports filled with natural-borns returning to Earth from that ship.
The ritual was about to end.
First, we needed to remove the Earth Fleet pilots from their transports before they could set off any alarms. We sent two-man teams to seize the transports—men with commando training who knew how to work quietly and would not hesitate to commit murder. If a pilot managed to do so much as tap his microphone, we would find ourselves stuck in the Scutum-Crux Arm forever.
The sergeant on my team would receive a field promotion to major once we became the Enlisted Man’s Marine Corps. He had been in the Corps for twenty years.
I stole up to the rear of the transport, held my gun ready, and peered inside. For this op, I used an S9 stealth pistol, a sidearm developed specifically for covert operations. The S9 used magnetic actuation to fire fléchettes with iron shafts and depleted-uranium tips. The guns were light, lethal, and silent.
Had I spotted anyone in the cabin or cargo hold, I would have shot him; but the kettle was empty. “Clear,” I whispered into my mike, and the sergeant slipped ahead of me and up the ramp. He crouched beside the cargo netting, his gun trained ahead. “Clear,” he said.
I shuffled up the ramp, barely lifting my feet so my boots would not make noise against the steel deck. I kept my pistol raised and ready, aimed on the door of the cockpit, my finger tight across the trigger. S9s were rated accurate to twenty-five yards—not exactly the sniper’s weapon of choice.
Hiding behind one of the girder ribs of the ship, I signaled the sergeant to catch up and checked in with my other teams. All twelve teams had managed to board the transports without incident.
Even with the ambient sound sensitivity in my helmet switched to maximum, the sergeant’s soft footsteps sounded no louder than somebody sweeping the floor with a wire brush. The man clearly had stealth-op experience.
“I’m going up,” I said.
The sergeant glided into a shadowy niche from which he had a clear line of sight to the cockpit, and said, “I’ve got your back.” He knelt and aimed his pistol, his armor blending into the darkness.
I crept up to the ladder, my pistol now stowed in its holster. My armored gloves made a soft clicking noise as I wrapped my fingers around the posts. At this point, the pilot would not be able to see me without leaving the cockpit, but he might hear something.
Transport 3 is secured, Thomer said over the interLink. He had captured his bird.
There was an eight-foot climb from the floor of the kettle to the narrow catwalk that led to the cockpit door.
“Captain, I can see him in there,” the sergeant said.
“Is he coming out?” I froze.
“Standing in the doorway.”
“Think he heard me?”
“I can’t tell.” The sergeant paused, then said, “Okay, he’s moving back in.”
Transport 5 is secure.
I’ve got 6.
Seven is secure.
I climbed to the top of the ladder, walked to the door of the cockpit, and swung in, lowering my pistol into place. The pilot started to reach for his communications set, then stopped.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said.
He looked at me, nervousness and indecision showing in his expression. Despite my warning, he reached for the microphone, and I fired three shots. The first dart pierced the top of his skull, just above the temple. The second hit him in the ear. The third hit him in the base of the neck. Had they been bullets, any one of the shots would have blown his head apart.
S9s had a nice soft touch. Instead of passing through the pilot and destroying equipment, the fléchettes lodged deep in the pilot’s brain and throat. He died instantly, thin streams of blood pouring out of his wounds.
Transport 2 is secure.
I waited until I had heard from all eleven of my teams, then I added that we had captured the lead transport. I also sent the message to Warshaw. That was his signal to radio the battleships that their transports were en route.
I dragged the dead pilot out of the cockpit and tossed him into the kettle. The steady stream of blood leaking from the holes in his head reminded me of motor oil oozing from an engine.
The sergeant knelt beside the body and examined the wounds. He looked up, and said, “Nice work.”
Once we captured the transports, it only took fifteen minutes to load our Marines. We would not use stealth pistols for the next part of the mission, we would use M27s loaded with standard rounds. Each of the battleships carried a five-thousand-man crew. We’d be outnumbered ten-to-one. Long odds.
With the natural-born pilots dead or captured, we used our newly trained Marine pilots to fly the transports. Our pilots sealed the kettle doors and started toward the atmospheric locks. Once again, I found myself standing in the crush of a hundred Marines crammed into a kettle, willing myself calm as I stared into the future.
The floor shook as the sleds pulled us through the locks.
“Listen up, Marines,” I said. “This little chat is the only briefing you will get on this op. The objective of this exercise is to commandeer ourselves a trio of battleships. I don’t know what kind of resistance we will run into, but we are dealing with sailors here; I don’t expect them to put up too big a fight.
“Are you with me so far?”
Every man answered. In the Marines, officers do not ask rhetorical questions.
“Any questions?”
“Sir, who is the enemy?” asked one of my sergeants.
“The new Navy,” I said, opting for total honesty.
“New Navy, sir?” several men asked.
“The brass at Navy Headquarters wants to train their new all-natural-born navy by testing it against us.” This was true, though I had made the unauthorized decision to accelerate the process.
“Are we packing blank rounds and dummy grenades?” another man asked.
“Good guess, but dead wrong. We’re using live rounds, boys,” I said. “Tag ’em and bag ’em.”
“We can’t use live ammo on U.A. sailors.” Dozens of men said that or something like it all at once.
“This is a full-contact exercise. We use live rounds on maneuvers. Today it is man against man. In another month, they will bring their new ships out here, and we’ll get to see how nicely they play the game.
“Now listen up, drill or no drill, we are going to lose men. This is military Darwinism, boys—one side lives, and one side dies. Let’s show them what a clone force can do, hoorah.”
“I don’t belong here! I’m natural-born!” The clone who said this sounded absolutely terrified. More than a thousand other clones responded by laughing, each of them believing that he was the only natural-born enlisted man in the fleet.
We only had a minute before we would reach the battleship, and I had one more order to give. “I’m looking for the smallest body count that gets the job done,” I said. “If they surrender, take ’em alive. Otherwise, just remember, we’re doing this for the good of the Unified Authority.”
I heard a twelve-thousand-man Aye aye, sir!
We were sending four companies to board each of the three battleships. All of my company commanders and platoon leaders had their assignments. Maps of the ships and virtual beacons had been programmed into every man’s visor. If we struck quickly, we would have the element of surprise on our side. With every passing moment, the sailors on those ships would have more time to arm and defend.
Normally, as I headed into battle, I would listen in on the conversations around the kettle. This time, however, I spent the remainder of our short trip lost in thought. I wondered what the security structure would be like on the battleships. Sailors did not carry sidearms. The armory might issue pistols or M27s to sailors pulling MP duty; but
for the most part, the only weapons they packed were their wits. Needless to say, that left most sailors empty-handed.
The capital ships in the U.A. Navy carried a detachment of Marines who handled ship security. As far as I knew, the Unified Authority no longer trained new Marines. That meant these ships would either have sailors carrying guns or soldiers doing the work of Marines. Neither option impressed me. As long as they let us dock . . .
“Captain Harris, we’re cleared to land.” My pilot had just given me the thirty-second warning.
“Okay, we’re coming in for a landing,” I said, using an open interLink frequency that all my men would hear. “The watchword on this op is speed. Hit hard, hit fast.”
We landed. Boosters hissed. Runners clanked and groaned. I moved to the rear of the ship. My Marines lined up behind me, pressing against my back. I did not need to look back to know they had their guns out and ready. I would lead the way into this battle. As the first man off the first transport, I would set the pace.
We stood in the dim light of the kettle, waiting for the heavy doors to open. Scanning the interLink, I did not find a single conversation. The motors in the kettle walls whined, and the heavy iron doors began to slide apart. Staring down the ramp, I saw technicians servicing the engines and deck-hands running errands, all unarmed and unsuspecting. They paid no attention to me as I clambered down the ramp. The men working on the engine were natural-borns. One had blond hair, two had brown. My instincts told me to shoot them, but I did not listen. I stormed down the ramp and ran past them. They did not look up at me.
“Asshole!” “Coward!” “Failure!” I muttered curses at myself as I ran across the docking bay, hating myself for not having pulled the trigger.
A couple of techs stood near the door. I wondered if I had what it took to kill anyone anymore. When had I become so timid? Why had I let those men live? If one of them so much as touched an intercom, we would all be stuck in Scrotum-Crotch forever. I hated myself.
The spatter of automatic gunfire echoed across the deck. Someone had cleaned up after my mess. I did not need to look back to know that the mechanics working on the engine were dead. My self-loathing turned to shame.
Hearing the commotion, the techs near the door finally looked up, only curiosity showing on their faces. Then they saw the parade of armor-clad Marines and reacted. One ran for the communications panel on a nearby wall, the other ran for the door. I shot them both—the man reaching for the panel first, then the sprinter. The guy heading for the door threw his arms wide when my bullets drilled into his back and neck, his head lolling back while his chest and shoulders thrust forward. He looked like a runner making a final burst to cross the finish line.
When I reached the door, I pressed my boot against the dead man’s shoulder and slid his bloody body out of the way. I felt no remorse; I would not have shot him had he not turned to run. “Soldiers have an army, sailors have a navy, the Marines have a corpse,” my old drill instructor used to say.
The corridor outside the docking bay was nearly empty, empty enough that I did not worry that anyone heard the shots. Even if someone had been nearby, the doors were thick, and we had suppressors on our M27s. The gunfire sounded no louder than the sound of a racquet striking a tennis ball. Any sailors happening to pass by the door would not even stop to think about what they had heard.
With a hundred men following behind me, I headed toward the bridge. Another hundred headed aft, toward the engine room. That left two hundred men to locate the armory and neutralize whatever resistance the sailors offered. In the past, battleships carried a complement of a thousand Marines. It occurred to me that even if this ship carried a regiment of “new” Marines, my four hundred could still win the day. My men were veterans of a more-established service. If the Unified Authority had an all-natural-born-Marines corps, the men in that corps would be untried men in an untried service.
The hall from the docking bay to the center of the ship was long and straight, wide enough for ten men to walk abreast. The way was bright and surprisingly empty.
We slipped through the halls quickly, making only a half-hearted effort to keep ourselves concealed. We stopped at junctions, peered around corners for targets, then moved on. A door opened and a sailor started to step out, saw us, and ran back inside. Two of my men followed him. I heard the soft chatter of suppressed gunfire and knew our secret was safe.
“Check every door,” I told my men.
“It’s like a ghost town,” one of my sergeants radioed in.
“Beta Team report?” I snapped.
Upon leaving the docking bay, we had split into four squads. Beta was the team I sent to capture Engineering. Alpha, my squad, would take the bridge. Gamma would look for the armory, assuming the ship had one. Delta would watch the halls and squish anything that looked dangerous.
“We’re approaching the engine room.” A moment later, he radioed in again. “It’s like they’re taking a lunch break or something, there’s only a couple of techs here.”
“Secure the area and report,” I said. “Gamma?”
“We have the armory.” Gamma had the shortest route to cover. The armory was on the same deck as the docking bay.
“Any problems?”
“Just a dumb-ass janitor who tried to run. I had to cap him.”
“Anyone else there?”
“The place is empty, Captain.”
“Delta?” I asked.
“Still deploying.”
“Okay, Delta leader. Fast and quiet. If they don’t stop and drop, waste ’em.”
It occurred to me that I had not heard the screech of the Klaxons. Apparently no one had spotted us yet.
Swinging around a doorway, I saw five sailors lazing around a coffee dispenser. I signaled caution to the Marines behind me. When we went in to take them, one of the sailors threw his hands in the air to show he wasn’t armed. My Marines shot the other four. Blood, meat, and coffee splattered the wall. Bodies fell.
“What do I do with him?” a private asked. He pointed to the scared shell of a man kneeling on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. The man hung his head till his chin pressed against his neck. He just knelt there, whimpering.
“Guard him,” I said.
“What about . . .”
I looked at the quailing sailor, and said, “We either guard him or kill him. Your choice.” Then I went to an open frequency, and said, “Listen up, Alpha, this break room is now our official holding pen. If you take a prisoner, you bring him here. You got that?”
They said they did.
The private cracked his M27 against the back of the sailor’s head, and said, “Stay down there, asshole.” He forgot to broadcast externally. Alpha Team heard him, the captured sailor did not.
The corridor funneled into a wide berth near the center of the ship. As we reached this area, we finally ran into resistance. Somebody fired a shot. The bullet struck the wall about five feet ahead of me, leaving a scrape. Two more shots followed.
I ducked against a wall, peered around the corner. The shooter hid behind a bulkhead.
“You three, flank him, take him,” I ordered the men standing behind me. As I fired a few shots, they scampered back down the hall and took an alternate route.
Moments later, the alarms finally sounded. The Klaxons were so loud that they made my helmet vibrate. The audio filters in my helmet dampened the noise, but it must have been excruciating for the sailors.
Somebody fired three hopeless shots in my direction even though I was completely hidden behind the corner. The shots came spaced a few seconds apart. I returned fire in three-shot bursts. My job was not to kill the enemy, just to keep them pinned. A moment later, automatic fire rang out, and my Marines let me know that the coast was clear.
Before leaving, I went to have a look at the fallen resistance. There were two of them, sailors on MP duty with sidearms and armbands. They lay facedown, their blood spreading into puddles.
I noticed my heartbeat
as I ran up the stairs leading to the next deck. It was normal. Running down the corridors of this battleship, facing only token resistance, I had not built up enough of a sweat to start a combat reflex. I might just as well have been playing Ping-Pong or herding a flock of sheep.
“Beta, report?”
“We have control of Engineering, sir.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“We killed a guy.”
“Any prisoners?” I asked.
“Yeah, sixty-three of ’em. There was a guy who took a swing at me with a wrench, but everyone else gave up without a fight.”
Sixty-three men in Engineering? I didn’t know you could operate a battleship with so small a crew.
“Captain, we have secured the lower decks.” It was the Delta Team leader.
“Any problems at the Marine compound?” I asked. The Marines would be stowed on the bottom deck.
“The deck was empty, sir.”
“There are no Marines in the compound?” I asked.
“It’s an empty space, sir. The whole compound is empty. There aren’t even any racks in the barracks.”
I considered this as we reached the bridge. The captain of the ship could have sealed off the bridge, but he didn’t. The hatch stood wide open, revealing a huge floor that looked like an office complex. There were desks and dividers and computers. You did not fly a ship like this with a flight stick or yoke; even the combat maneuvers were programmed into a computer.
We had not seen any real resistance. On the bridge, the captain of the ship made his stand as best he could. He met us at the entrance, flanked by six men carrying M27s. He and the two armed men beside him wore the khaki uniforms of officers—a one-star admiral with a captain and a commander by his side. The four men behind them were simple seamen.