The Clone Conundrum (Forgotten Fodder Book 2)

by MJ Blehart

  “Calliope,” Jace said, “do you know anyone that disappeared?”

  “Yes,” Yeager answered. “Dee-two and I share an old shuttle in the southwest slums with three others. There are a couple of old personnel carriers that were overturned and converted into barracks. Housed a dozen infantry—four Rojas and eight Dahl clones. All of them disappeared about a month ago, no trace. Nobody knows when they went, or where. But a dozen clones never just vanish like that, ya know?”

  “I do.” Jace nodded.

  “And it’s not like the local authorities care enough to do anything about that,” Onima supplied.

  “Exactly,” Yeager said. “Which is why I hoped maybe the CBI cared enough to get involved.”

  “And none have returned?” Jace pressed.

  “Not from that instance,” Yeager said. “But a friend of mine, Charlie Dahl, had vanished for about a month. He just reappeared in the old tent he called home one morning, barely coherent, babbling. Then, like others afflicted, he turned to goo and was gone.”

  Jace grimaced. Onima recalled watching the clone Zee Alpha Three liquefy as a result of the virus.

  “We have a clear line to the Aquila,” Yeager reported.

  Onima looked at Kara. “Can you use your tech to get us a secure signal to Captain Barr?”

  “I should be able to do that.” Kara waved her hand over her forearm, calling up a 3D holographic screen. She tapped at it a few times, then looked to Onima.

  “Do it,” Onima ordered.

  After a moment, Captain Barr’s voice rang out in the shuttle’s flight deck. “Deputy Marshal Martinez?”

  “It’s Gwok, Captain,” Onima spoke. “Turns out Martinez has an advanced secure comm. Are you in a secure locale?”

  “One moment,” Barr requested, and Onima knew he was either going into his ready room or the CIC. Then he said, “We’re secure, Marshal.”

  “We’ve had a very weird day,” Onima began. “I cannot get into the complete details, but we had to leave Aarde while avoiding notice. We’re in a private shuttle on our way to the Aquila and need to get back aboard without notice.”

  “Hence this private comm with me?” Barr asked.

  “We couldn’t even alert Special Agent Amber that we’d left the city,” Onima said. “I have always trusted you, Martin, and hope you will help.”

  “Of course,” Barr replied. After a moment, he said, “I am transmitting the beacon code for the ship’s top access airlock. It’s only used for maintenance purposes, but can be accessed ship to ship, too. Have your pilot approach from dead aft and fly overtop the ship no more than ten meters’ distance. Comm me when the ship is a hundred thousand klicks away so I can disable the proximity alarm.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Onima said.

  “I can’t wait to hear the whole story,” he stated. “Barr out.”

  “You get that, Yeager?” Onima asked.

  “Yeah,” Yeager drawled. “One small problem. This shuttle doesn’t have a bottom hatch. I’ll have to fly overtop your ship inverted.”

  “Can you handle the ten-meter distance?” Onima asked.

  “Piece of cake,” Yeager replied.

  There was a moment of silence, then Yeager said, “You have no interest in clone disappearances, do you?” She looked at Jace. “Don’t you offer a clone’s perspective as an agent of the Bureau?”

  Jace sighed. “Sorry, Calliope. I am not an agent, nor employed by the CBI. I’m just a special consultant for a specific investigation.”

  “However,” Onima said, “I promise we will look into it. We were previously unaware of any disappearances, but now that we know, I suspect they might be connected to...another investigation my colleagues and I are attending to.”

  “Thank you,” Yeager said, then asked Jace. “Are they always this respectful?”

  Jace chuckled. “It’s taken some getting used to, but yes. They are still the exception to the norm, but I appreciate that about them.”

  “We’re right here, you realize,” Kara said flippantly.

  The Aquila was filling up the viewscreen of the shuttle. Onima hoped that all their precautions to return to the ship unnoticed wouldn’t be for naught.

  20

  Jace watched as Onima carefully climbed out of the shuttle.

  Before they had inverted, Yeager had deactivated the artificial gravity. But they would need to be careful, as the Aquila had its gravity still active.

  Jace had removed his restraints as he’d watched Kara follow Onima back toward the passenger compartment and the hatch. “Thanks again, Calliope,” he told the pilot.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied. “For what it’s worth, Jace Rojas, I think our kind couldn’t have a better representative to the CBI than you.”

  “Thanks,” Jace said.

  “You have my comm?” Yeager checked.

  “I do,” Jace replied.

  He floated out of the flight deck and into the passenger compartment. Kara was already in the airlock. Jace reoriented himself, feet first, and entered the hatch.

  Jace closed his eyes and began along the ladder. When he felt the pull of gravity, he opened his eyes. He knew from previous experience that that stopped the disorientation.

  He sealed the shuttle’s hatch. As he climbed down a couple more rungs, he tapped the pad to close the Aquila’s outer hatch.

  A few more rungs down, and Jace passed through the airlock. He soon dropped to the floor beside Kara.

  Onima was standing just before them, facing Captain Barr. Nobody else was in the compartment with the trio.

  Barr tapped a control, and the ladder to the hatch withdrew back into the ceiling. The airlock irised closed as well.

  The shuttle detached with a soft clang, which nobody outside of the compartment they stood in would hear.

  Yeager had been instructed to rotate her shuttle towards the way she had come, thus flying back over the Aquila. She would signal Jace’s comm once she was a hundred thousand klicks away so that Barr could reset the proximately alarms.

  While that would be an open communication, it would be too brief to be traced. What was more, a comm message to Jace was most likely to go utterly unnoticed.

  Nobody said a word as the quartet stood in the compartment. They were in the uppermost deck of the Aquila, just aft and above the bridge and combat information center. Jace recalled the ship’s schematic and remembered that this section was a maintenance area.

  It felt like a lot of time passed before Jace’s comm beeped. At that, Barr tapped a control.

  Everyone held their breath a moment. But the proximately alarm didn’t go off.

  “Well then,” Barr said. “Welcome back. What the hell happened?”

  Onima relayed a great deal of their experience to the ship’s captain. More detail than Jace would have expected her to. Kara said nothing, observing the conversation the same as Jace was.

  In conclusion, Onima said, “Jace had a great idea. He recognized the charter company likely used clones for their pilots and gave us an in to charter the flight without the usual channels. So, here we are.”

  Barr looked to Jace. “You’re sure that your clone pilots will keep quiet?”

  “Absolutely,” Jace said without hesitation.

  Though no code existed between clones, there was still an unspoken understanding. They were the underclass of the galaxy, and all had different functions—but were also all the same. Each of them had been created and used for a specific purpose, abandoned after the war they were made for had ended, and left without purpose or direction.

  Even between clones created by the NEEA or NECC, Jace had never heard of any betraying another clone. That, he suspected, was an additional factor of the ambition inhibitions instilled in their overall makeup.

  “What do you need, Marshal Gwok?” Barr asked Onima.

  “For now, we need nobody to know we are here,” Onima said. “I need complete access to all personnel files, the duty roster for both the Aquila crew
and CBI agents, and uninhibited systems access. I’d also appreciate it if we could commandeer your observation deck.”

  “Of course,” Barr said.

  “Not to put too fine a point on it,” Onima continued, “but it’s imperative, Captain, that nobody know we are here. If you receive communication from Yael—and I expect you will soon—you’ve heard nothing from us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Barr said. “I just need a moment to make certain nobody is between here and the observation lounge. I will be right back.”

  Barr signaled the lift. When it opened, he stepped in. The door closed, and he was gone.

  “Are you sure we can trust him?” Kara asked.

  “Yes,” Onima said without hesitation.

  “If he lets it slip that we’re here, whoever the mole is will have a chance to act.”

  “I know,” Onima said. “Trust me; Barr is safe.”

  Nobody said anything.

  A moment later, the lift returned. Barr gestured for them to join him.

  The door closed, then reopened less than a second later. It was not even a full deck from the top hatch maintenance area to the command deck. Barr led them quickly aft toward the crew quarters.

  They stepped through a pair of hatches, then walked past numerous closely spaced hatches along each wall. At the end of the corridor, they reached a larger closed hatchway. Barr entered a code, and the door irised open.

  Inside was a surprisingly large observation lounge. Above was a clear viewport looking out into space. At the center of the room was an expandable table, presently at its smallest size.

  “Terminals are obvious,” Barr said. “Crew will stay out of here. There are two heads, one port and one starboard. I’ll arrange something to eat and drink if you need.” He paused, clearly noticing they were all hurt. “And maybe a first aid kit or two.”

  “Perfect,” Onima said.

  “Direct comm me if you need anything,” Barr told her.

  “Thank you,” Onima replied.

  Captain Barr nodded to Onima, then Kara, and then to Jace, much to his surprise. The captain departed from the conference room, leaving the trio alone.

  “Pardon me,” Kara said, walking toward the starboard head. Wordlessly, Onima went to the portside one.

  Clones, in addition to needing less food, water, and sleep, also had a reduced need to excrete bodily fluids. One of the alterations to clone DNA recycled cells more than destroyed them. That wasn’t to say clones never needed to relieve themselves: it just tended to be only once per day, total.

  Jace took a seat at the conference table and waited until Kara and Onima joined him once again.

  “Now what?” Kara asked.

  “We see if anything stands out about anyone on the duty roster,” Onima said. “We look for any irregularities in behavior, misplacements, and unusual off-ship comms, including everything incoming and outgoing.”

  “And you are sure we can trust the captain?” Kara pressed.

  “Implicitly,” Onima said. “But to alleviate your concerns, allow me to elaborate.”

  Though Jace fully trusted Onima’s judgment, he wanted to know the story, too.

  “First, bear in mind, Captain Barr and the crew of the Aquila are not Bureau agents,” Onima started. “They work with and for the Bureau, but they report to the Office of Confederation Defense. That means they do not report to or through the Bureau’s chain of command, but rather to a deputy of the AECC Secretary of Defense. While I have ‘command’ over this ship and where it goes, the Aquila’s non-CBI crew follow Barr. In a military emergency, he’s in charge.”

  “Right,” Kara said.

  “So,” Onima continued, “when I was first promoted to marshal, I was given this ship for my crew. Because of my love of spaceflight, and the whole transition process from normal space to warp, I got to know the captain. And that was Martin Barr.”

  Onima grinned. “He was surprised when I first walked onto the bridge. In part because I only observed, and in part because it was clear I knew what was outside of my prerogative. It seems that a lot of marshals either ignore and disregard the ship’s crews—or even attempt to command them. Barr was impressed with me, and I learned a lot from him because we found we related well to one another.

  “Since then, we have worked together the whole time I have been a marshal. Captain Barr has saved my life more than once and has never been anything but an ally. I trust him as much as I trust anyone in the galaxy.”

  “Works for me,” Jace said.

  “Okay,” Kara said. “Bouncing around as much as I do, I’ve never made that sort of connection. I trust him if you trust him, Onima.”

  As if on cue, Barr entered the observation lounge, carrying a tray with three large water bottles, some ration bars, and two first aid kits.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Onima said again.

  “All the data you requested is here,” Barr gestured toward the conference table and its terminals. “Also, you are locked off from the rest of the network. Nobody can see that you are inquiring into any data at all.”

  “Good thinking, Captain,” Onima said.

  Jace could see why Onima trusted Captain Barr as she did.

  Without another word, Barr left the observation lounge.

  Jace took a swig of water, watching as both Onima and Kara took ration bars to eat. Kara devoured hers, then got ahold of one of the first aid kits.

  After ten minutes, both the marshal and deputy marshal had eaten and cleaned up their injuries. Jace was only just bruised, so he did not avail himself of the kit.

  Onima gestured toward the data terminals. “Here’s what I want to do,” she said. “Each of us goes over the full duty roster. Every member of the Aquila crew, as well as all the CBI agents aboard. If we each go over the total list, we’re less likely to miss anything.

  “Agreed,” Kara said.

  Jace tapped at the tabletop in front of him, and a holographic screen appeared. He began to comb through the complete list of Aquila crewmembers first. The whole crew compliment of the starship was ninety-eight.

  There was nothing unusual about any of the crew of the Aquila that stood out. They mostly did their jobs. One or two mild irregularities cropped up, but with his military experience, Jace recognized uploads of questionable entertainment from anything untoward.

  Then, Jace turned to the roster of CBI agents. Between agents and special agents, which were the majority of the CBI operatives, there were eighty on the ship. That included Onima and Kara, the two highest-ranking.

  Jace hadn’t realized there were quite so many aboard the ship. Checking through their files, however, revealed nothing useful. No illicit uploads or downloads. Nothing suspicious.

  Kara and Onima were done about the same time as Jace.

  “Nothing,” he reported.

  “I’ve found nothing of use here either,” Kara said.

  Onima nodded. “Me neither. That’s no surprise. Let’s check through the comm logs and see if we can tie anything unusual there to anyone.”

  “Define ‘unusual,’” Jace said.

  “Any comm signals to Earth, anything scrambled, or anything that just looks like it doesn’t belong,” Onima said.

  Jace understood and began a search. It would take some time: there were thousands of messages sent off-ship in the records. They included standard data files, personal messages, voice messages, and mixes of all the above.

  It wasn’t long before Jace recognized patterns. Status updates, short check-in signals, and that sort of regular comm traffic. That made it much easier to recognize and dismiss normal communications.

  Within an hour Jace had combed the entire archive of communications. The few things that might have been out of the ordinary were either directly connected to Onima and her secure comm conversations with Samarin or, in one instance, a message between Kara and Rand and, finally, a comm signal between Captain Barr and an official of the Office of Confederation Defense.

  Kara and Onima
compared notes with Jace and drew the same conclusions.

  “If the mole is here,” Onima said, “then they are operating completely independently.”

  “Or they’re hiding really well,” Kara put in. She looked to Onima and added, “It’s possible they have a secure personal comm like mine, but that doesn’t mean it would fully avoid the ship’s sensors and logs. The other possibility is that they’re scrubbing any signals they’re sending.”