On his notepad he had a picture of Yoko, his wife. He stared at her and took courage in the thought that this mission might well protect her. He also knew that the only way he would ever see her again was in death.
Leaving the bay, Takahashi paused to take one last look along the darkened deck. He saw men who looked like demons scurrying on an errand of mercy and murder, working as silently as shadows.
The main hall of the lower deck was dark and mostly empty. Once Admiral Yamashiro had given them their ceremonial farewell, the SEALs disappeared into the woodwork. Hundreds of them must have reported to the Sakura’s four landing bays.
It took Takahashi longer to reach the bridge than usual. He found curiosities everywhere he looked. In the dim light, his sailors looked like ghosts. They floated up and down the corridors, haunting the decks that still had lights and walls and flooring.
He found the top deck crowded with sailors. Most of the men did not recognize him until he stood among them. They moped along the hall, whispering among themselves. All discipline seemed to have drained out of them. When he stepped close enough for them to see him clearly, they stood nearly at attention and saluted.
The bridge, though, was different. Here the mood remained businesslike. Takahashi entered the bridge, and Suzuki circled toward him like a bird of prey.
“Are we ready to launch?” asked Takahashi.
“We just heard from the landing bay, sir. The infiltration pods are charged.”
“Good. And our broadcast engines?”
“Ready, sir.”
“Where do you have us broadcasting in?” asked Takahashi. It came so easily now. He was talking about his own death, but he might have been talking about visiting old friends back home.
Suzuki stepped closer so that no one would hear what he said next. “I programmed the computer to broadcast us into the center of the planet.”
Takahashi thought about that. “Interesting plan, Commander, but it leaves no margin for error.”
“What could go wrong?” asked Suzuki.
Takahashi smiled, and said, “Something will go wrong. Something always goes wrong.”
“Yes, sir. Would you prefer to enter above one of their cities?” He had the coordinates. Their spy satellites had mapped the entire planet before the Avatari sleeved the planet.
“Someplace flat and low,” said Takahashi. “Even if everything goes according to plan, we will still need to avoid their tachyon shield.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Location: Planet A-361-B
Galactic Position: Solar System A-361
Astronomic Location: Bode’s Galaxy
The anomaly shattered the cold, bright sky at the edge of the city. One thousand feet in the air, the inside of the tachyon layer formed a perfectly smooth ceiling above the planet, a silver-white surface as bright as a sun shining through the gauze of clouds. Like the other ships of her make, the Sakura had a black hull that offered reasonable camouflage in space but stood in stark relief against the bright sky.
Not designed to fly among such atmospheric abstractions as wind currents and convections, the battleship fumbled in the air. Inside the bridge, navigators struggled to stabilize the big ship in the air, using boosters engineered for course correction in space. The ship jumped and dropped like a fledgling bird struggling to fly.
With his ship bouncing five stories at a time, Takahashi found it almost impossible to think, and his survival instincts took control of his brain. Even though he had come on this mission planning to die, fear and panic now filled his mind. Had he not been in his chair when the ship broadcasted into the atmosphere, he would have hit the ceiling above his head. To his left and right, men and clones who had been standing, now lay on the floor, some writhing in pain, some unconscious.
Holding on to workstations and walls to lock himself in place, Commander Suzuki fought his way to the navigation station. An experienced navigator, he squirmed behind the console and took control of the ship. Seconds passed. Tremors still rocked the Sakura, but Suzuki stabilized the ship.
Takahashi rose partway out of his chair. His mind cleared. “Landing bay . . . Landing bay . . .” he yelled into the communications console.
No one responded.
Takahashi tried to climb out of his chair, but his legs were weak. The acid-and-sawdust smell of vomit filled the bridge. Takahashi ran a hand across his forehead. When he looked at the hand, fresh bright blood covered his fingers and palm.
The door to the bridge opened, and in staggered Master Chief Oliver. He looked at Takahashi and asked, “Why hasn’t it happened?”
Takahashi put up a hand, waited a moment, then spit out blood and two teeth.
Corey Oliver had short legs, but he could run three fourminute miles without a break. Now he sprinted down the hall, trying to keep his balance as the deck rose and dropped beneath his feet.
Oliver had already shifted his mind into combat mode. Thoughts took second place to reflexes and autonomic judgment. A sailor lay on the ground in the fetal position, his arms across his stomach. Oliver leaped over the man, landed, and kept running without looking back. Another sailor stood leaning against a wall for support, a stream of blood pouring from the gashes along his left eye and cheek. He reached a hand out to Oliver, who spun to dodge him and just kept running.
The ship fell and bounced. It was a big bounce. Oliver held a hand above his head as the floor dropped from beneath him. His wrist and elbow slammed into the ceiling. The SEAL knew how to land on hard surfaces; bending his knees, balancing perfectly, he rose to his feet and ran to the stairs, already aware that he had dislocated his shoulder. Cradling his right arm with his left, the clone stumbled to the stairs, then jumped whole flights in his rush to reach the landing bays. He landed hard, bounded face-first into the bulkhead, turned, and jumped the next flight. A wounded sailor tried to stop him. Oliver pushed the sailor aside and found his way to the bottom deck. The lights had gone out. The deck was so dark that he would have needed lights had it not been for the genetic enhancements in his eyes.
The air smelled of fire, sweat, excrement, and blood. Men had died. Oliver saw bodies. With the panels removed from the ceiling and the walls, men had flown into girders and piping in the turbulence.
Oliver opened the first landing bay and hit the “panic” button on the communications panel. When he saw the destruction, his breath caught in his throat.
Showers of sparks shot out of holes in the walls. Bodies and equipment lay scattered like garbage along the floor. Two launching devices had fallen over, the “caskets” they held now scattered among the bodies on the floor.
Aware that he might be entering a room filled with radiation, Oliver ran to one of the S.I.P.s. The stealth vehicle did not have gauges or timers on its smooth outer shell, and the dark matte finish revealed no secrets.
“Bridge,” said Oliver. He waited a moment, then asked, “Captain, can you hear me? I’m in the landing bay.”
“What is the situation?” asked Takahashi.
“It looks like a tornado just blew through here,” Oliver said, then added, “maybe an earthquake.”
“What about the pods?” asked Takahashi.
“I can’t tell. It looks bad, the computer stations were smashed.”
“What about the other bays?” asked Takahashi. He started to say something else, then signed off.
Oliver did not check the bodies. He did not have time to care for wounded men who were already marked for death.
There was nothing he could do in this landing bay. Whatever had happened to the pods, Oliver could not diagnose or fix the problem without a working computer station, and the stations in this bay had been smashed.
Having been designed for deep-space travel, the Sakura was not aerodynamic. Unlike airships, she could not glide. If her thrusters faltered, she would drop.
Captain Takahashi felt helpless as he watched Suzuki, his second-in-command, typing maneuvers on the navigation keyboard. Battleships like the Sakura were controlled wi
th computers instead of sticks and throttles. Buttons lit up on the panel, and Suzuki pressed or ignored them. Alarms blared, lights flashed, warning signals went off, and the ship stuttered.
“We can’t hover like this for long. She’s not made for this!” said Suzuki.
Staring into screens and not looking back, Suzuki yelled, “We’re down to one-third of our fuel.” Unlike the ship’s main engines, the Sakura’s thrusters used fuel made from liquid oxygen.
Takahashi listened but did not answer. He knew that fuel meant for course corrections would not keep a ship in the air for long. The continuous booster stream needed to keep the big battleship afloat would drain their already three-year-old fuel supply.
“The engines are too hot. They’re going to melt!” yelled Suzuki. “We can’t do this.”
Takahashi looked through a tactical display to the glarefilled sky outside. “Take us to the shoreline,” he said.
Suzuki did not argue. He said, “Aye, sir,” and began working the computers.
Maybe we should land the ship, Takahashi thought; but he could not give that order. The Sakura was made for deep-space travel, away from gravity. She did not have the wheels or skids needed for landings. When she needed repairs, the Sakura floated into a deep-space dry dock. The only gravity she was designed to withstand was the gravitational force of an orbit.
The second landing bay had been stripped for the colony. Oliver found an empty chamber, vast and black. No lights shone in the void, not even over the emergency exit. With his genetically enhanced eyes, he could see that the floor was bare. No equipment. No bodies.
Other SEALs came to help. Some were injured. One man had broken his right arm, a nub of bone stuck out of his forearm. He carried a flashlight in his left hand. Seeing this, Oliver wanted to send him away; but with his dislocated shoulder, Oliver needed as much help as he could get.
“You, with the flashlight, over here,” Oliver barked at the injured SEAL. The man came to join him. “Follow me.”
Oliver led the pack to the third landing bay. There they found the same kind of damage that the master chief had seen in the first bay. Oliver also saw something else. Hitting the communications button, he said, “Bridge,” waited a moment, then said, “I’m entering the third bay.”
“The pods?” asked Takahashi.
“I’m just entering.”
“We’re running out of time, Master Chief,” said Takahashi.
“Yes, sir,” said Oliver.
Nearly one hundred SEALs entered the bay behind him, some bleeding badly.
“The only easy day was yesterday,” muttered the man with the broken right arm and the flashlight. It was a proverb often repeated by SEALs.
Oliver heard the words and nodded, then told the SEAL to check the computer stations.
The SEAL stumbled off to look at the toppled stations. A moment later he returned, and said, “The computer stations are broken.”
“Did you hear that, sir?” asked Oliver.
“I heard,” said Takahashi.
Despite the calm in Takahashi’s voice, Oliver read his desperation.
“What happened down there?” asked Takahashi.
“They weren’t expecting a rough ride, so they didn’t secure the launch devices. I don’t know how we could have secured them anyway. They’re made to fit in transports.”
Senior Chief Warren entered the bay and pushed his way through to Oliver. He asked, “What can I do?”
“Take some men and get me a launcher and twelve caskets,” Oliver told him.
“What are you doing with caskets?” asked Takahashi.
“That’s SEAL-speak, sir. Caskets are infiltration pods,” Oliver explained. “I was speaking to one of my men.”
“What is the condition of the pods?” asked Takahashi. “Why haven’t they exploded?”
“It’s just a hunch, sir, but I’d say the broadcast disrupted the charging process,” said Oliver.
“That doesn’t make sense,” snapped Takahashi. “Those pods have been through thousands of broadcasts.”
“Not when they were charged, sir,” said Oliver. As he spoke, Oliver surveyed the wreckage. One moment everything looked hopeless, then he saw a transport and the solution occurred to him in a flash.
“I need seven minutes,” Oliver said as he stared at the bulky old transport.
“Seven minutes? We may not last one minute,” shouted Takahashi.
“I need seven minutes, sir,” Oliver repeated.
“It only takes three minutes to charge up the pods, and I’m not sure we can last three minutes.”
“It will take you seven minutes to charge your broadcast engine. Captain, I think you and your men are going to survive this mission,” Oliver said.
“Survive? What are you talking about? How are we going to do that?” asked Takahashi.
As he walked through the shadows to have a closer look at the transport, the Sakura sputtered, bounced up, then dropped so quickly that Oliver felt his feet leave the floor.
“What do you mean we’re almost out of fuel? Use the reserves. There have got to be reserves.” Torn between two conversations, both urgent, Takahashi sounded distracted. He yelled, “Master Chief, we aren’t going to be around in seven minutes.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
After that last shake, Oliver understood what had happened to the men and machines in the landing bays. On the bridge, the furniture was attached to the floor. The ceiling was low. When the ship bounced, sailors who did not brace themselves got bounced. On the big bounces, they hit their heads and shoulders on the ceiling, then landed hard on the floor.
In the docking bays, there was nothing to stop a man from bouncing twenty-five feet in the air. The ceiling was twenty-five feet up and there was nothing on the deck to secure the men to the floor.
The Sakura took another hard knock. Men and machinery flipped in the air. Already broken, the launchers crashed, shattered, and bent. Stealth infiltration pods dropped on bodies and slid. Oliver was thrown ten feet in the air and landed badly, trying to catch himself with his dislocated arm as he tumbled.
But the transport did not move.
The transport did not move. It was clamped into a launch sled.
The rear hatch of the transport hung open, a gaping maw in the dim light of the bay. Oliver looked back and saw two teams of SEALs wheeling in pods and equipment. He signaled for them to follow him, then trotted into the transport.
Fortune smiled upon him in the grimmest of ways. As he started up the ramp, he spotted a launch device and computer station in the darkness of the kettle. No glow rose from the computer screen, and no lights winked along the side of the launch device, but the transport had obviously been powered down, and Oliver thought that the odds were pretty good that both mechanisms still worked perfectly.
The Sakura hit what might have been a small pocket of turbulence. The deck of the transport dropped out from beneath Oliver. It was a small bounce. He landed on his feet, rolling his right ankle. If he somehow survived another hour, the sprain would hurt; but he knew that he would not live long enough to feel it. For now, he could still walk. The joint did not seize; it simply felt stiff.
He looked at the pod-launching equipment. Both the computer and the launch device had not moved. Bolted into tracks that ran across the floor and ceiling of the transport, the launcher remained fixed.
Oliver crossed the kettle. He struggled as he climbed the ladder one-handed. When he reached the top, he flopped onto the catwalk. Ignoring the pain in his dislocated shoulder, he stood and entered the cockpit.
Like many of the SEALs, Corey Oliver had received flight training for transports. Hoping the bird had not been abandoned because of mechanical problems, Oliver climbed behind the stick and powered up the controls. The board lit up without a hitch.
He would fly the transport and launch the S.I.P.s himself. It was a one-man job. Only one man would die. The Sakura and her crew would live.
Looking at the tactica
l screen, Takahashi saw a city that showed no signs of life. Buildings both round and square, some metal, some mirrored, stood in straight-edged rows. He saw bridges and streets. Part of the city was covered with waterways that looked both narrow and deep; but he did not see boats, cars, flying vehicles, or pedestrians.
“Sir, maybe they’ve evacuated the city,” said one of the weapons officers.
“Maybe they’re in emergency shelters,” said Suzuki.
Given the view in the tactical screen, either man might have been right; but to Takahashi, the city looked abandoned. There would have been cars along the roads if the population had hidden in shelters. There would have been debris. The city looked like it had been stripped bare by time.
Most of the buildings were a few hundred feet high, but some stood a couple of thousand, vanishing into the perfectly flat dome of shining energy.
“Captain, we can’t navigate around these buildings. The Sakura doesn’t handle like a fighter, she’s too big,” said Commander Suzuki. They’d already bumped hard as they tried to maneuver around one of the buildings.
Just beyond the city was the shoreline. Takahashi said, “Take us over open water, Commander.”
As the captain of the Sakura, Takahashi Hironobu would not let her die until she had completed her mission. If they could just hold on for a few minutes more, she might not need to die at all. “What’s our fuel status?”
“We’re out,” said Suzuki.
“We’re still flying,” said Takahashi.
“We should have gone down three minutes ago,” said Suzuki.
“Just keep us up,” said Takahashi.
He looked at the timer by the tactical display. Five more minutes. He did not know what was keeping the Sakura in the air. He did not know the source of the miracle, but he hoped it would last. A few more minutes, and the broadcast engine would be charged. Then they could launch the transport and broadcast to safety.
The Clone Redemption Page 25