The Clones of Mawcett

by DePrima, Thomas

  LaSalle, after her very brief command of the Boshdyte, transferred back to the Prometheus in time for the morning briefing about the mission. Kanes also joined the senior staff as Gavin laid out Jenetta's idea and the mission objectives.

  "Sir," Jenetta said, "I volunteer to pilot the Boshdyte. I'd like to get a little payback for my sister."

  "Sir," LaSalle immediately said, "that should be my job. I'm still listed as being in command of the Boshdyte."

  Gavin looked at Commander LaSalle. "You want to do this, Commander?"

  "Yes sir."

  "You realize that it's extremely dangerous? You'll have to set the course, engage the engines, and then run for an escape pod and eject. You'll have just ten seconds. You definitely won't have time to reach a shuttle and launch?"

  "I–– understand that, sir."

  "Very well, Commander. The job is yours. Good luck."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "We'll commence the operation at 1000 hours today. The other ship's captains have all been briefed and will be prepared for whatever the outcome. That's all."

  LaSalle, grinning at Jenetta as if she'd won a great victory, left immediately for the flight bay, while the rest of the officers walked to the bridge. At 1000 hours the Boshdyte began to move away from the Prometheus.

  LaSalle began swinging the ship around after it passed a point seventy-five thousand kilometers from the asteroid. As it lined up on the asteroid doors and she brought it to a halt, the sensors indicated that it was fifty-thousand two-hundred kilometers from the ring of Space Command vessels. That should give LaSalle more than adequate time to eject before passing the Prometheus' position. She had located an escape tube just outside the bridge and run the pod's self-diagnostic routine to ensure its rocket would fire. Now she carefully checked to make sure that no vessels were in her path, locked the astrogation controls, and engaged the engines.

  The gravitative inertial compensators weren't quite as sophisticated as those aboard SC ships and LaSalle was knocked off her feet as the Sub-Light engines kicked in. There was no time to waste as she pulled herself up and ran from the bridge.

  In the corridor outside the bridge, LaSalle leapt into the waiting escape pod and punched the oversized eject button. The Boshdyte was picking up speed rapidly as it hurtled pell-mell towards the asteroid. The hatch of the escape pod slammed shut and LaSalle felt the satisfying lurch as the tube's ejection jets fired. But the pod only moved a meter before a warning bell sounded, and a light on the pod's control panel started flashing. LaSalle slammed the bottom of her fist against the eject button again and again, but the pod still didn't move.

  After several seconds she moved back to the door, hoping to use another pod, but the doors were tightly sealed. With the pod slightly out of launch position, the hatchway seal wouldn't release. LaSalle used her fists to pound on the door in frustration and anger.

  "AAAAAAAAAHHHH," she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Damn you, Carver. This is your fault. You should be the one stuck in here, not me. You've done it to me again." She continued to scream and beat her hands uselessly against the walls of her escape pod prison as the Boshdyte raced pell-mell towards the asteroid's enormous entrance doors.

  A shuttle was standing by outside the Prometheus, ready to retrieve the escape pod, but the Boshdyte passed the battleship without any of its pods ejecting.

  Gavin, standing on the bridge, said, "Tactical, are you sure that no pods have ejected?"

  "Affirmative, Captain," the lead tactical officer replied. "No pods have ejected."

  The bridge crew watched the front view screen anxiously as the Boshdyte moved ever closer to the asteroid's main doors. There was virtually no way to stop the flight of the doomed ship now. Every Raider laser array that overlooked the entrance on the asteroid poured a stream of deadly coherent light pulses into the ship as the Boshdyte came into range. It would have been difficult for the gunners to miss such a massive target, and it was bleeding atmosphere from hundreds of small holes. But punching holes in an empty ship in space isn't going to stop it, and it continued on its path towards sure destruction. Even striking the engine and power cells wouldn't stop the ship once it had attained Sub-Light-5. Like a meteor, it would continue on until it impacted something with sufficient opposing mass to slow or stop it.

  The Boshdyte struck the doors just left of center, and the combination of the explosive charges, coupled with the forward momentum of the ship, bent both doors inward as it knocked them out of their tracks. They tumbled into the cavernous interior as the Boshdyte disintegrated. A tunnel wide enough for two of Space Command's largest warships to simultaneously pass into or out of the asteroid was revealed. The Raider base was now open to attack. Without waiting for the defenders to recover from the blast, two dozen squadrons of fighters, previously launched from the SC ships, headed for the new opening. Fire rained down on them from the first Raider gunners able to re-man their guns, but only a few fighters were crippled or destroyed as the rest entered the gaping maw. The bridge crews in the ships encircling the asteroid listened anxiously to the ship to ship chatter from the pilots as the fighters began attacking the warships inside the port.

  Once the Boshdyte's course had been determined, and the intent divined, every red-alert lamp inside the station had begun flashing, and gunners aboard the ships inside the asteroid had run for their stations. That Space Command would sacrifice a ship in this way caught the Raiders totally by surprise, but they responded quickly. As the fighters began their attack inside the asteroid, Raider ships were already backing away from their docking piers and moving towards the opening at much higher than normal, or even safe, speeds. The Space Command ships moved to within ten kilometers of the asteroid with the expectation that the fight was about to get serious. Laser gunners began targeting and destroying the laser weapons mounted on the surface of the asteroid while they waited for the Raider ships to emerge.

  As Raider warships erupted from the asteroid, their officers were stunned to find the Space Command ships sitting on their doorstep. In seconds, the fighting outside the asteroid was as deadly as the fighting going on inside. Some ships emerging from the asteroid immediately turned to avoid the three battleships only to find themselves under the guns of the cruisers and destroyers that were guarding the flanks.

  Standing orders called for the fleet gunners to concentrate first on the Raider's temporal field generators, so almost every ship emerging from the asteroid saw its generator blasted to pieces while it was trying to build an envelope.

  Jenetta just sat in the first officer's chair, calmly sipping her coffee as she observed the action. The large coffee mug provided something to occupy her hands.

  Unlike previous engagements, every laser weapon and torpedo guidance station aboard the Prometheus was manned and ready. The helmsman used the ship's side-mounted engines to twist and turn the ship within their allotted area of space outside the base, giving first the larboard gunners and then the starboard gunners a crack at the emerging vessels.

  Gunners facing away from the action didn't have time to rest, as they were too busy firing at ships that made it past their ship. None made it past undamaged, and few were very space-worthy after running the blockade.

  Tactics were limited. With their FTL capability gone, the Raiders couldn't get away from the SC warships, so this became a toe to toe slugfest. The ships with the strongest hulls, most powerful weapons, and best trained gunners, had the advantage.

  Although the Raider fleet took the brunt of the inflicted damage, the GSC ships didn't escape unscathed. Raider laser gunners and torpedo officers loosed their deadly arsenal with abandon as they fought for their lives. Scores of hits were made against the Prometheus and the other ships in the close-in combat, and most ships were bleeding atmosphere from gaping holes in their hulls.

  The entire fight lasted less than half an hour following the impact of the Boshdyte, and only one ship actually managed to go FTL and escape from the hell and carnage around the a
steroid. When the exodus of ships from the station finally ended, the area around the asteroid was littered with the hulls of Raider ships, or pieces of Raider ships that had been blasted into oblivion. The fighter craft inside reported that the remaining ships were not attempting to back away from their moorings.

  The fight was over, but before the Space Command vessels could stop and lick their wounds, they had to complete the station takeover.

  Moving into the enormous hollow asteroid, the Prometheus brought its larboard laser arrays and torpedo tubes to bear on the habitat area and Gavin again broadcast a message demanding the immediate surrender of the station. In response, a message was received and the front view screen filled with the mottled and strained face of a Terran.

  "This is Commandant Mercandis of Raider Three. Hold your fire. We surrender."

  "This is Captain Gavin of the Prometheus. Have your people disarm and assemble in your cargo handling area. All but one of the ships that tried to leave have been destroyed and we won't hesitate to destroy the rest of this station if you put up any further resistance."

  "My remaining people are only base support personnel so there won't be any further resistance, Captain."

  Upon being contacted by Gavin, Captain Powers of the Chiron moved his ship into the asteroid to provide cover as the Prometheus docked and the Space Marines forces deployed into the habitat. When the Marines had control of the cargo area and the surrendering station personnel, the Chiron docked so its complement of Marines could reinforce the Prometheus' security forces. With most of the station's personnel under control, the Space Command forces were free to begin mopping up and making emergency repairs to their ships.

  On the bridge of the Prometheus, Gavin was busy examining the reports coming in from Damage Control Central, and from other ships. The Prometheus, miraculously, hadn't lost any personnel in the engagement, but LaSalle was missing and no sightings of an escape pod had yet been reported. The Chiron had lost thirty-eight people when a nuclear tipped torpedo struck the ship and exposed parts of four decks. Eight other ships had also taken torpedo hits, some suffering extensive loss of life, and the fleet had been badly pounded by laser fire with many ship sections losing atmosphere and therefore some of the crewmembers working in those areas. But overall, the losses were far less than they suffered at the Battle of Vauzlee, where an entire destroyer had been lost, and hardly compared to their losses at Higgins.

  The Raiders lost twenty-six of the twenty-seven ships that tried to flee. So far, no attempt had been made to search for survivors in the Raider ships and no searches would be conducted until the Space Command vessels had first completed their emergency repairs.

  "Captain," Jenetta said, "permission to leave the bridge to check on damage control operations?"

  "Commander, I'd like you to take control of the station instead. Get the Raiders that are surrendering under control, and insure that every square meter of the station is searched for anyone that might be hiding. Then get the station squared away."

  "Aye, Captain," Jenetta said and hurried from the bridge. She was delighted with the assignment. She'd thought it would be hours before she could find a legitimate excuse to leave the ship and begin a search of the station for Christa. She wondered if the Captain was making the excuse for her. He certainly knew how important it was to her.

  As Jenetta walked through the wide docking tunnel that extended from the ship to the dock, memories of her time as a captive at Raider-One flooded her mind. More important matters had occupied her conscious thoughts back then, so the base's architecture had definitely taken a back seat, but from what she remembered, this base appeared identical. At the end of the tunnel, Jenetta stepped into an enclosed dock wide enough for two vehicles or robot loaders to pass easily and safely. The enclosed dock extended out alongside the ship for over a hundred meters from the habitat's perimeter platform, but the airlock in the Prometheus' forward cargo bay was only thirty meters from the front of the ship, so Jenetta's trek was a short one.

  A fifteen-meter wide platform extended along the entire front of the habitat and beyond, continuing from the first dock towards the rear of the cavern until it reached the last. A wall of reinforced plasticrete, several meters thick, between the ships in the cavern and the platform, helped insure that the habitat wasn't breached if a pilot got careless when docking. It would take a collision powerful enough to collapse the front of the ship before the platform's protective wall was damaged enough to lose atmosphere. And there were additional protections to insure that the habitat remained airtight even if a ship intentionally rammed the habitat. The back side of the platform abutted another three-meter, reinforced plasticrete wall. A dozen corridors, each with emergency bulkheads, provided entrance to the cargo area. In the event that a drop in pressure occurred on the platform, the bulkhead walls would immediately slide down into place, effectively sealing the habitat and preserving its atmosphere.

  Passing through the nearest corridor brought Jenetta to the station's Docking Level cargo area. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of prisoners were sitting on the deck surrounded by armed Marines ready to open fire on any Raider who decided that he or she wanted to fight after all.

  Jenetta moved to the deck area established as a temporary command center. As she reached a makeshift table constructed from packing crates, Marine Major Visconti came to an easy attention. At fifty-eight years of age, Visconti had finally overcome the strange feelings he used to experience when he found himself in Jenetta's presence. He knew she was deserving of his respect for the things she had accomplished, but her youthful appearance had for long time troubled him greatly. As a senior officer and forty-year veteran of the Corps, treating someone who looked like an Academy cadet as an equal, or worse, as a superior, was— unsettling.

  "At ease, Major. I have orders from Captain Gavin to take command of the station."

  "Yes ma'am, I was so notified."

  "How many prisoners do you have here?"

  "One thousand six-hundred forty-seven, mostly men."

  "Have you begun searching for hold-outs?"

  "Yes ma'am. Patrols are scouring the station deck by deck," he said, pointing to floor plans of the station spread out in front of him on the improvised table. Found in the warehouse manager's office, the plans made the task at hand much easier. "Our sensors can pick up the heartbeat of a mouse at a hundred meters, so if anyone is hiding, we'll find them."

  The Docking Level here, like the Docking Level at Raider-One, had a twenty-five-meter high ceiling. According to the deck plans, the next level up had the same basic floor layout and ceiling height. The ceiling heights allowed twenty-meter tall shipping containers to be brought into the warehouse area for loading or unloading via a special airlock located just before the dock platform began it's long passage into the cavern. A lift large enough to accommodate the forty-meter long cargo containers assisted the movement of cargo between the two levels.

  "Have you been to the detention center yet?"

  "Not yet, ma'am. I concentrated most of my force at the top level of the habitat and they're working their way down, clearing and sealing each level as they go."

  "Where's the commandant of the station?"

  "He's over with that group," Major Visconti said, pointing. "They're the senior personnel."

  "Thank you, Major. Carry on."

  As Jenetta moved towards the prisoners that the Major had pointed to, she knew that she probably could have identified this group without having them singled out. Even in defeat, their faces exuded self-confidence. They were people used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question."

  "Who's the senior security person here?" Jenetta asked loudly.

  No one spoke up.

  "We can find out easily enough if you want to do this the hard way, but it won't be as pleasant."

  "I am," a man in his late fifties said.

  "Your name?"

  "Polito. Captain Dennis Polito."

  "Stand up, Dennis."
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  "Who are you?" he asked, as he continued to sit on the deck.

  "Don't you know?" Jenetta asked, her eyebrows arched in surprise that a Raider chief security officer might not know what she looked like. Her image had been plastered across every newspaper, magazine, and vid news broadcast innumerous times during the past two years. Although her appearance had changed slightly as the DNA changes progressed, he should recognize her.

  "You look a little like that Carver bitch that destroyed Raider-One."

  Any hope that Christa was on the station, or ever had been, immediately evaporated. The Raider security officer would certainly have recognized Jenetta immediately if Christa had been here. She worked to keep any sign of disappointment from showing her face. She knew that she had to appear powerful and callous to receive any respect from this man. He was the type that reveled in intimidating others.

  "See?" Jenetta said smiling evilly. "You already knew who I am."

  "I'd like just ten minutes with you, alone," he said, as he got to his feet, his hands clenching and unclenching.

  "Commander Pretorious had a similar wish," Jenetta said softly. "It turned out to be the very last wish he ever made. Be careful what you wish for, Dennis; I don't have much use for Raider jailers. Did you know the late Commander, by the way?"