by Jay Allan
Harmon leaned back in his chair, wishing for a moment he could be anything at all, save the one who would have to make the final decision. The fight against the Regent was bad enough, a sometimes hopeless-seeming struggle against a vastly superior enemy. But, there were tactics in battle, at least, and there was definitely a thing called victory. If they could find and destroy the Regent, the war would be won. But there was no solution to the friction between Earth Two’s genetic groupings. The people were right to fear an unlimited number of Mules…and the Hybrids were every bit as justified in their concern of how they would be treated if there were too few of them. It felt like there should be some kind of balance, equilibrium…but Harmon had come to believe there wasn’t.
Suddenly, he slammed his hand down on the table. “Enough of this. We’re facing an enemy that wants to kill every last one of us, one that views us all, NB and Mule alike, as an infection that needs to be eradicated…and we’re at each other’s throats. I forced through the repeal of the Prohibition twelve years ago, something that was long overdue. But, I didn’t go far enough. The Mules, whatever threats they may present in the future, have done more to ensure our survival than any other group…even all the others combined.”
West was silent, but Harmon could see from the scowl on her face, she thought her spacers had done their part as well. They had, of course…but without the tech the Mules had continued to feed them, they wouldn’t have had a chance against the Regent’s forces.
“I am relaxing the restrictions on Mule quickenings…” He could see the discomfort, even among some of his closest advisors. Save for Cutter and Ana Zhukov, of course, who wore expressions somewhere between satisfaction, and creeping concern. “…but, I am not eliminating them entirely. Henceforth, three hundred Mules will be created each year, plus any number needed to offset deaths sustained during the prior time period.” No one knew how long a Mule’s life expectancy stretched, save for the generally-accepted assumption that it was considerably longer than a normal human’s, even one subject to the rejuv therapies the Mules didn’t seem to need. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that no Mule had ever aged noticeably beyond entering maturity, six of them had died, three in crèche malfunctions, before their official ‘births,’ and three in a lab accident four years before.
“Triple? Do you think that’s a good idea, sir?” It was Connor Frasier this time. The Marine’s eyes darted to the side, a quick glance toward his wife. Harmon knew Frasier and Zhukov disagreed about policies regarding the Mules, and also that they were both headstrong and almost certain to voice their own, often contradictory, opinions. He wondered how they managed that when they were together…perhaps some kind of ‘leave it at the door’ policy?
“You think it is too many, Connor. You’ll have a lot of company. I suspect we’ll be back here before long discussing just how far I should go in suppressing the protests that will no doubt spring up everywhere. But the Mules, the younger ones, at least, and by far the majority, of total numbers if not yet of adults, want no limits at all. You question whether people will accept a tripling…I do the same, only I also wonder how the Mules will react, and if Achilles will be able to control his people, to get them to accept the incremental change instead of the outright removal of all controls they seek.”
He looked out over the now silent room. There were no more questions, nor any challenges. It was clear Harmon had made up his mind, and all those present were loyal supporters of his regime. They might argue among themselves, but he didn’t doubt every one of them would accept his judgment.
It wasn’t them he was worried about, nor Achilles and the original Mules, even. It was the young generation of Hybrids, that concerned him, bristling with an arrogance that was almost built into their engineered genes…not to mention the Human League and other groups calling for a return to only natural methods of reproduction. The desperate need to build population in the republic’s early years had offered a counterbalancing force to the propaganda of groups like the League. But, forty-two years of high birth rates and massive Tank cloning classes had lessened the urgency of those early initiatives and increased the appeal of the pro-NB activists.
Harmon knew on one level, he could do what he wanted, whatever he considered right. He was a dictator, but he was one with a fatal weakness. He wasn’t ready to unleash his soldiers on the people, and he wasn’t sure he would do it—could bring himself do it—even if the future of Earth Two was at stake. He’d been skillful enough, or lucky enough, to avoid having to take such steps over the twelve years of his unchallenged rule, but he suspected that run of luck was likely to end soon.
“Well,” he said after a long pause, “we’ve all got work to do before the fleet sets out, and I need to have a talk with Admiral West before she shuttles up to orbit. Some of you are happier with my decision than others, but it is made…so let’s all make the best of it. I will speak with Achilles tonight, and then, if that goes well enough, I’ll make an announcement tomorrow. The change will take effect immediately, with the next generation of Mules, due to be quickened in a little over two weeks.”
He watched as they all stood up and began filing out of the room, returning the various nods and quickly spoken goodbyes. Finally, when only he and West remained, he instructed the AI to close and lock the door.
“So, Erika…here we are again, planning yet another fight. I once indulged myself with the thought that we’d both be retired by now, telling stories perhaps, in some veterans’ center or at reunions.”
West smiled, almost as close to a laugh as she’d come in the last twelve years. “You, sir? What about me? I’d have been there a good bit before you, I think.” West was fifteen years older than Harmon, though it was difficult, especially at a quick glance, to discern the ages of people who were on the rejuv therapies, at least between roughly the mid-forties and early nineties. Harmon could see signs of age around the admiral’s eyes, a patch of wrinkles he suspected came as much from stress as from the passing of the years, but she didn’t look all that different than she had during the fleet’s desperate journey so long ago.
“Erika, we’ve fought together so often, set out for battle so many times. I wish I could go with you now.” It was the kind of thing one said in such a situation, but Harmon surprised himself with how much he meant it. There was something honest about combat, especially against an enemy as detestable as the Regent. He’d been a politician, of one sort or another, for more than forty years now, and while he knew he’d done a lot to help protect Earth Two and hold its fragile society together, he still felt unclean. He often thought of the horror his younger self would have felt if he’d been able to look into the future.
“I do, too, sir…but we both know you have duties here, every bit as important, if not more so.”
“I’m not sure anything is important as what you’re doing. For as much as the Mules and the Leaguers and the others scheme against each other, the Regent’s the one power that would exterminate us all in a moment if it is able. If you can cut out its antimatter production, just maybe we can cripple its fleets…and gain the time we need to hunt it down and destroy it, like we did its predecessor.” He’d started out sincere, but he realized how little he believed what he was saying by the time he finished. Before West could respond, he added, “Erika…have you considered the possibility that this is some kind of trap?”
West sat quietly for a few seconds, exhaling softly. “Max…” She hadn’t called him Max more than a couple times in twelve years. “…I have considered this campaign a hundred different ways, from every perspective I can think of. I’m not sure it can be anything but a trap.”
Harmon felt like she’d hit him with a sack of cement. “You think it is definitely a trap? Then why have you supported it? We can still cancel the operation…”
“No, sir…we can’t.” She looked at him and suddenly he could see the vulnerability behind her normally stonefaced demeanor, the bone-deep fatigue. “We left behind scanning device
s in the old imperial star systems near Earth Two, and we placed more when we were intercepting the renegade fleets in the years after the Regent’s destruction. There have been no reports from them in decades now. The old Imperium seems to be quite dead. It’s almost a certainty the new Regent is outside the boundaries of the previous entity.”
“We’ve always worked on that assumption.” Harmon nodded for West to continue, a bit confused on where she was going with her point.
“Well, sir…I’ve done some calculations. If we take the volume of space between the imperial border and the edge of this spiral arm, we’re looking at a volume of space with, perhaps thirty to sixty thousand stars.”
“That’s a lot of systems, Erika.”
“Yes, sir, but our best estimates are that less than one-third of solar systems are connected to the warp gate network…which makes those systems almost as if they weren’t there at all. That leaves, what, maybe ten to twenty thousand systems?”
Harmon nodded.
“Well, now we have to look at what we know about the Regent’s forces, their size, and, of course, their antimatter power systems. They can explore systems much more quickly than we can, and they have an easier time discounting those they scan. The Regent knows, of course, what we need in terms of a habitable world, while as far as we know, it could be on a frigid moon orbiting some gas giant, or a sunbaked chunk of rock a few degrees from molten status. It is looking for cities, for habitation. For all we know, the Regent is buried somewhere under kilometers of rock. We have to do intensive scans even to get a decent idea if a system is clear, while their scoutships can determine a system is not Earth Two, almost literally in minutes.”
“You’re suggesting the Regent is likely to find us before we find it?”
“I’m not suggesting, sir. I’m saying it outright. For years, I’ve been trying to develop a plan, any kind of plan for offensive action, an effort to damage or destroy the enemy before they find us. This is the first thing that’s been even remotely realistic. Trap or no trap, that antimatter production facility is real, there isn’t much doubt of that. And, if it is a trap, that means the enemy will have its strength concentrated there.”
“You want to walk into a trap because you’re sure the enemy fleet will be there in force?”
“I wouldn’t put it exactly that way…but, yes.” West looked down for a few seconds before her eyes darted back up. “It’s just us here, Max…you and me. We can pat ourselves on the back for the civilization we built in forty years, for the hundreds of thousands of people living where a battered group of survivors once landed. We can revel in the new tech the Mules’ efforts have provided us, and look at our fleet, larger by far than the one that got trapped behind the Barrier…but we know it’s all an illusion. We’re losing this war, slowly perhaps, but almost certainly. The enemy is going to find Earth Two before we discover the Regent’s system…and when they do, they’ll come here with everything they have. And, we can’t win a defensive battle, you know that as well as I do. They don’t have to destroy the fleet or obliterate all our defenses. They just have to get close enough to launch a big enough missile attack. A single cruiser holds enough megatons to kill every man and woman on Earth Two, and that doesn’t even take their antimatter warheads into account. They didn’t destroy the planets back home during the first war, on the other side of the Barrier…most likely because they were once part of the Imperium, spared by some still-functioning routine even the Regent couldn’t override. But, we’re not in the Imperium anymore, sir. The message the Ancients left us was quite clear about that.”
Harmon took a deep breath. He’d considered much of what West had just said, but never all of it in its overwhelming, depressing entirety. “You’re saying this is a longshot…but it’s our only chance at victory.”
West’s lips twisted into a grimace for a few seconds. “Let’s say, it’s a chance to strike at the enemy, and that if it comes one day to a defense of Earth Two, the fleet isn’t going to be that helpful anyway. The planet’s ringed with fortresses and missile platforms, and they’re longer ranged even than the enemy’s mobile weaponry. That’s our defense…and if we can fight the enemy somewhere else, far from here, we might be able to delay the coming of the day when we’re fighting here. And, we might just beat down the enemy’s forces, destroy enough ships to set them back for a few more years.”
Harmon suddenly realized with a cold certainty that West didn’t expect to come back. It was normal enough to consider death before a campaign or battle, but that wasn’t what was going on. Erika West was heading out in command of the fleet…and she expected to die in the coming fight.
“Erika…” Harmon’s voice was emotional. He leaned forward across the table, reaching out and putting his hand on her arm.
“Don’t worry, Max, not about me. I’m ready to meet my destiny, if that’s what the universe has in store. I’m tired, so tired. If there is a chance to buy more time, to give you the years you need to find some way for Earth Two to survive, or for the Mules to decipher enough ancient technology to truly protect the planet…I’m ready to do what I have to. No, it isn’t my fate that troubles me…it’s the other losses we will suffer, the thousands of men and women who will likely perish. You knew as well as I do what kind of battle this will be, and, also like me, you’ve been in fights like that before. Even the ones who survive and return will be…changed.”
“Erika…” It was what he had said a moment before, but it was all he could force out of his suddenly parched throat. He’d known West for more than fifty years, and while he’d already been worried about her, and the entire fleet, hearing her talk so resolutely about her own death had shaken him.
“It’s okay, sir. I’ll make sure as many of them get back as possible.” She stood up slowly. “It has been a great honor to serve with you, Max. I remember having conversations with Terrance years ago.” She looked right at Harmon, and he could see something he’d never seen before. Tears welling up in her eyes. “He loved you Max. He thought of you as a son…always. Don’t ever let yourself forget that. Or him.”
Harmon leapt to his feet and walked around the table. He didn’t say a word. He just put his arms around the old admiral and hugged her. “I’m not giving up on you, Erika. Hit the enemy hard, turn their trap around on them…but come back here. Do you hear me? That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” she said softly, clearly struggling to keep the moisture from pouring out of her eyes. “And, you do whatever you have to here. Hold Earth Two together. Unless we’re all united, we have no chance at all.”
Then, she pulled away from his embrace and paused for just a few seconds, before she turned and walked out the door.
Chapter Eleven
Marine HQ
Just Outside Victory City, Earth Two
Earth Two Date 12.11.42
“It is past time, Colonel Cameron.” He used the officer’s partial last name, the one the Marine had chosen for himself after leaving the crèche and not the one he’d inherited from his DNA donor. The usage of the double names had declined somewhat over the years, in the Corps at least, as the Tanks who dominated the service sought to fit in more seamlessly with their naturally-born comrades, and also to emphasize their individuality rather than the genetic ‘sameness’ they shared with a hundred or more crèchemates. “Your people…” Connor Frasier paused for an instant. “…those not from the original fleet…must move now into the senior positions.”
Frasier covered his discomfort as well as he could. He’d meant the Tanks when he had first referred to Cameron’s ‘people,’ a well-intentioned reference that also reflected the passage of responsibility from the receding Pilgrims to the younger generations born on Earth Two. The Tank part made him uncomfortable, mostly because his policy had always been to assert that a Marine was a Marine, and he didn’t care if that young leatherneck came charging out of his human mother or an artificial womb, as long as he did it with a scowl on his face and his fist held hig
h in the air. But, he’d gotten as caught up as anyone in the tension between clones and the naturally-born, and he’d done all he could to cultivate a generation of promising Tank officers to move into the highest command ranks.
Frasier regretted the divisions that so fractured Earth Two’s society, and it was hard, from his perspective at least, to argue that the Tanks, who made up more than eighty percent of the Corp’s rank and file, were not under-represented in the senior ranks. The age gap had explained that well enough for a time, at least when Pilgrims had occupied all the top officers’ positions. But, Frasier had been forced to exert considerable pressure to see that Tanks as well as NBs were moved up to command ranks as the older officers began to retire.
“I want to thank you, sir. It is a great honor, and I am proud to know that you have confidence in me.” Cameron stood at attention, despite the fact that Frasier had twice motioned for him to sit. He paid no heed to Frasier’s reference to his clone status.
The Marine’s uniform was spotless, which impressed Frasier all the more because he knew for a fact that Cameron had been out on final maneuvers until less than twenty minutes before he’d walked into the Commandant’s office. Frasier tried to imagine the hulking warrior racing back to barracks, showering, and hopping around on one foot as he climbed into his dress blacks, all in time to race across the quad and step into the office looking as though he’d just walked down the hall. He was still trying to put together a sequence in his mind, but he kept coming up at least two minutes short.