“Sounds fair,” I said. Crouching so that I would not hit my head on the low ceiling of the R-27, I left the cockpit and climbed out through the cabin door. The port on Mars was an ancient structure. There was a stately quality to its thick, concrete block walls and heavy building materials, but the recycled air always smelled moldy.
The U.A. never colonized Mars. The only people who lived there were merchants. A huge duty-free trade had sprung up around the spaceport—the busiest galactic port in the Republic. Selling duty-free Earth-made products proved so lucrative that retailers rented land from the Port Authority and built dormitories. Stepping into the Mars Port waiting area was like entering the universe’s gaudiest shopping mall.
Many of the stores had flashing marquees and hand-lettered signs in their windows: “EARTH-MADE CIGARS,
$300/box!” and “SOUR MASH WHISKEY—100% EARTH-MADE INGREDIENTS.” Travelers flowed in and out of the stores. Since Mars technically had no residents, everybody on the planet qualified for duty-free status.
I pushed through the crowd, ignoring the stores and the restaurants. Over the speaker system, I heard a woman’s voice announce the arrival of a commercial flight, but I paid no attention. Our new officers would meet me in the USO.
The USO was empty except for a man refilling the soda bar. I was early—the trip in had taken less time than the pilot expected. I took a seat in the waiting room, amid the homey sofas and high-backed chairs. Isn’t that just how it goes in the Marine Corps, I thought. You spend 95 percent of your life sitting around bored and the other 5 percent fighting for your life.
I was very tired and wanted to nap, but I fought the urge. My mind drifted. I thought about the security plans for the Doctrinaire, but those thoughts strayed into a daydream about how that great ship might perform in battle. In my mind, I saw the Doctrinaire flashing into existence near the GC Fleet, brushing destroyers aside as it concentrated its firepower on the GC battleships. I saw four squadrons of fighters spitting out of the tunnels and swarming enemy ships. God, it would be beautiful.
“Hello, Lieutenant Harris.”
The voice sounded familiar and toxic. Admiral Che Huang, smiling so broadly that it must have hurt his face, sat in the seat beside mine. Behind him stood four MPs. “Surprised to see me?
“It was awfully nice of Klyber to send you. The way he’s been hiding you, I had almost given up. Today must be my lucky day.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
In light of his feelings about Liberators, I expected Huang either to toss me in the Mars Port military brig or possibly shoot me and dump my body in deep space. Instead, he transferred me someplace where he could keep an eye on me—the Scutum-Crux Fleet.
Whether by coincidence or by design, the UAN Ulysses S. Grant happened to be patrolling less than one thousand miles from a disc station. Traveling from Mars to the deck of the Grant took less than ten minutes.
My new tour of duty started on a positive note. Second Lieutenant Vincent M. Lee met me as I stepped from the transport. He was made to wear the gold bar on his shoulder—well, maybe not made for it; but with his bodybuilder’s physique, he looked like the ideal of how an officer should look.
“Wayson,” he said in a whisper, rushing up to me and shaking my hand. “I half expected to hear that you were killed in a freak accident on the way here.”
“How did you know I was coming?” I asked.
“It’s all over the chain of command. Captain Pollard heard that another of the Little Man 7 was coming aboard and sent word down the line.”
That didn’t sound bad. It sounded like I had caught a break, like Huang possibly wanted to separate me from Klyber but didn’t care much what happened to me beyond that. “You heard how I got this transfer?”
“Jeeezuz, Harris! Huang himself?”
“Yeah,” I said. “The little specker looked like he was going to wet his pants he was so jazzed with himself. But if the worst he has planned is sending me here, maybe he’s not so bad.”
Having said that, I noticed a tense reaction in Lee’s expression. His eyes darted back and forth, and his lips drew tight. “Harris, Captain Pollard wants to meet with you to discuss your orders. Maybe we can talk after that.”
“That doesn’t sound so good,” I said.
“It isn’t,” Lee said. He led me down a long corridor toward the elevator to the Command deck. “I had to trade favors just to meet your transport. Huang wanted a team of MPs to escort you from the transport directly to the brig.”
“You’re taking me to the brig?” I had never visited the brig of a Perseus-class carrier. But I doubted it would be near the Command deck. The area we were passing through was pure officer country, all brass and plaques. Naval officers walked around us, some pausing to catch a quick glimpse of me.
“I’m taking you to Pollard’s office. He was one of Klyber’s protégés. He’s doing what he can for you, but it’s not much.”
“You have enemies in high places, Lieutenant,” said Jasper Pollard, captain of the Grant . “From what I can tell, Admiral Huang personally arranged this transfer.”
“I’m not surprised, sir,” I said.
“I would not assign a rabid dog to Ravenwood Station, Lieutenant.”
“Where, sir?” I asked.
“Ravenwood. Have you been briefed?”
“No, sir,” I said.
He shook his head, pursing his lips as if he had bitten into something sour. “Pathetic. How can they send an officer into action without a proper briefing? Under other circumstances . . .” Pollard walked to a shelf and selected two small tumblers. Using silver tongs, he placed three cubes of ice in each tumbler. “You drink gin?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He splashed three fingers of gin over the ice. “I know about Little Man, of course. You must be one hell of an officer.
“I have also heard about your hearing before the House.” He handed me a tumbler. “Leave it to those assholes to turn a medal ceremony into an inquisition.”
Pollard downed his gin and jiggled his glass so that the ice spun. “Considering your record, you’re probably a good choice for Ravenwood. You’ve got as good a chance of survival as anybody. Then again, I hate wasting a perfectly good officer on an assignment like that.” He shot me a wicked smile. “Even a Liberator.”
Sitting behind his desk with his hands on his lap, Captain Jasper Pollard looked too young to command a fighter carrier. With smooth skin and no visible gray strands in his brown coif, the captain looked like a man in his early thirties, though I am sure he was closer to fifty. “Let me tell you about Ravenwood. We’ve lost a lot of men on that speck of ice.”
“Sounds bad, sir.”
“We’ve kept a lid on the story. As far as I am concerned, if Morgan Atkins wants that planet, we should give it to him. We should pay him to take it. That goddamn planet is of no value, industrially or strategically. Apparently the big boys in the Pentagon have an itch about giving in, so they keep throwing men down that rathole.”
He walked to his desk and sat down. “Ravenwood is on the inner third of Scutum-Crux, near the area where Scutum-Crux and Sagittarius merge. We never colonized it. It’s too far from a sun. The goddamn rock is half ice, but it has an oxygen atmosphere.
“Anyway, the Navy set up a refueling depot on Ravenwood. It wasn’t much—a small base, fuel, food, ammunition, emergency supplies. They stationed a hundred men there. It was one of those assignments. Get caught screwing some admiral’s daughter and you might get sent to Ravenwood.”
Or Gobi,I thought.
“The base went dark four weeks ago.” Pollard raised his hands, palms up, to show confusion. “They did not send a distress call. For all we knew, they just blew up their communications equipment.
“So Thurston sent us to investigate. We found the base empty.”
“It was empty?” I asked.
“Someone attacked it,” Pollard said. “Someone broke through the outer wall. There was a fight. We found b
ullet casings and burns on the walls. What we did not find was bodies.
“Thurston ordered me to leave a unit behind to guard the place while he investigated. That unit disappeared the next day.”
“How many men, sir?” I asked.
“A platoon,” Pollard said in a hollow voice. At that moment he looked ancient and cold. “We don’t know if they are dead. We never found bodies. We have recovered equipment and a few dog tags.”
“This sounds like a ghost story,” I said.
“It just might be that,” Pollard said. “I’ll tell you what I think happened, and maybe you’ll wish it were ghosts. I think the Mogats are in Central Sagittarius. I think Ravenwood Station has a good view of their base. I can’t prove it, but that is what I think.”
We sat silently as a few moments ticked by. “How big a squad am I taking on this assignment?” I asked.
“You have a handpicked platoon. Good men. I’m sorry to lose them.” He slid a thick personnel file across the desk. “Here’s your mission profile. You have a few hours before you leave. I can loan you an office if you want to meet your men.”
“Thank you, sir, but I think I’d rather place some calls.”
“Huang sent a memo instructing me to make interLink and mediaLink facilities available for you. Admiral Klyber is your guardian angel, right? I think he wants you to contact Klyber. This is Huang’s way of thumbing his nose at him. Now that you are in Scutum-Crux territory, there’s not much Klyber can do.
“I’ll give you that office. You’re free to use the communications as you like.”
The truth was that I was embarrassed to run to Klyber for help. I was supposed to be the head of security, and I’d let myself get abducted. God, I hated Huang. How long had that bastard been waiting for a chance to nab me? Probably since Ronan Minor. Admiral Che Huang, the secretary of the Navy, had spent more than one year looking for some way to cap me, a lowly grunt. I should have been flattered.
With three hours before my shuttle left for Ravenwood, and Lee waiting outside the office, I picked up the mediaLink shades and toyed with the idea of writing a letter to Kasara. I wasn’t really interested in her, but who else could I write to? So I tried to write to her and found myself struggling with every word. After less than five minutes, I deleted the letter and went out to grab a drink with Vince.
“How’s the sea-sailor’s bar on this boat?” I asked.
“Not as good as the one on the Kamehameha, ” Lee said. “But it’s got plenty of booze.”
It was early afternoon; we had no trouble finding a table to ourselves. We sat in a corner and did not talk for almost a minute. “How is Jennifer?” I finally asked.
“She’s good,” Lee said. “We’ve traded a couple of letters since Hawaii, but I get the feeling she’s moving on.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said.
“You know Kasara is getting married next week, right?” Lee asked. He read my expression and knew the answer.
“I heard from her the day you went to the House,” he said. Your speech was big news. She actually called me to ask if you were all right. I think she still has a thing for you; but you’re off being a Marine, and her old guy is right there on her planet.”
“And her fiancé was okay with her calling you to ask about me?” I asked.
“I doubt he knew. I get the feeling there are a lot of things he doesn’t know, like the fact that his soon-to-be bride did more than get a suntan in Hawaii. Jennifer wrote me about it. She came home talking about breaking things off. That lasted about one month. Then she never heard from you. Next thing you know, Kasara is announcing she is about to get married.”
“So we’ve both been dumped,” I observed.
“Well, I never thought of Jennifer as marriage material . . . but damn fine scrub.” He laughed.
“To damn fine scrub,” I said, and we clinked our beers. And then we both became quiet again. This time the silence lasted longer.
“Harris, I don’t know if anybody can survive in a trap like Ravenwood; but if anybody can, it’s you. I wanted you to know that. I know you thought Shannon was the perfect Marine, but you’re even better.”
I did not know what to say. I looked at him and smiled, but inside I felt incredibly alone. “What about you, Vince? You made it. You were the first orphan to make lieutenant. Wasn’t that the first step toward a life in politics?”
He shook his head. “Now that I’m here, I think I like it. I like life among the natural-born. I think I’m a career Marine from here on out.”
Still the same guy, I thought. If any clone ever suspected his synthetic origins, it was Lee. And if ever a clone spent every waking minute trying to deny that suspicion, it was him again. And now he had landed himself in a position that truly did mark him as a natural-born . . . even if he was synthetic.
“A career man, eh?” I said. “You’ll do one hell of a job.”
I felt a sinking feeling as the doors of the kettle crept closed, blocking any hope of escaping back onto the Grant . The men in my all-clone platoon did not speak much as our transport took off. Two diligent Marines field stripped and cleaned their M27s. Most sat quietly staring into space. One fellow even managed to fall asleep. We had a five-hour ride ahead of us. I envied him.
A few minutes into the flight, I went to visit the cockpit. There were two officers flying the ship—a pilot and a navigator. “Could you turn down the lights in the kettle?” I asked. “I want these boys rested.”
It was very dim in the cockpit. The only light was the low glow from the instrumentation. A soft blue-green halo glowed over the small navigational chart near the pilot. Many of the energy and communications displays glowed white and red. “Want them all the way off?” the pilot asked.
“Can you give me ten percent luminance?” I asked.
“No problem, Lieutenant,” said the pilot.
“Thank you. Oh, one other thing,” I said as I turned to leave. “Could you call me before we land? I was hoping to get a look at the planet as we approach.”
“No problem,” the captain replied as he turned back to his control panel.
I closed the door behind me and returned to my seat. The pilot had dimmed the cabin lights so much that I could barely see in front of me. Dressed in green armor that appeared black in the dim light, my men looked like they were carved out of stone. A few conversations still smoldered around the cabin. Men spoke in whispers, hoping not to disturb comrades sleeping around them.
I dropped into my seat and thought about Hawaii and swimming in clear tropical waters. My eyelids fluttered, and my thoughts lazily floated into dreams, becoming more vivid and colorful. I felt myself floating in balmy currents, slowly rising and sinking in gently changing tides. I could see shapes moving just beyond my reach. As I concentrated on those shapes, I realized that I saw the bodies of men tied to the floor of the sea.
“Lieutenant.”
A hand gently nudged my shoulder. I blinked as the dimly lit cabin came into focus. The navigator stood over me, speaking in a soft voice. “We’re just coming up on Ravenwood now.”
“Okay,” I said as I stretched. My mouth was dry and filled with a bad taste. The stale air in the transport cabin had left my nose congested. I also had the dozen or so assorted aches and stiffnesses that come with sitting up while sleeping.
I entered the cockpit and got a quick glimpse of a gray-and-blue planet. I saw no hint of green on the planet’s surface, just the black and gray of stone surrounded by the iron blue of frozen seas.
“Welcome to paradise,” the pilot said.
“So that’s what paradise looks like,” I said.
“What did you expect?” the navigator asked.
“I’ve got a lock on the landing site beacon,” the navigator said. “You’d better get back to your seat. We’ve got to prepare to land.”
“There’s an empty seat,” I said, pointing to the copilot’s chair. “Mind if I stay for the landing?”
“Suit yourself,�
� the pilot said.
I peered out the cockpit door and noted that the lights had come back on in the cabin. Almost everyone would have woken up.
We were flying over a wide expanse of prairie. There were scabs of yellow-brown grass on the ground, but most of what I saw was a rock floor with patches of ice. Above the dismal prairie was a sky choked with clouds. In the distance, enormous mountains jutted out of the plains like great daggers that pierced the swollen sky. We did not travel as far as those distant cliffs. Our little fort sat by itself on a flat plateau. Its gleaming white walls looked insignificant, surrounded by thousands of miles of rock and ice.
As the transport approached, I was very pleased to see that Ravenwood Station was made of sturdy concrete and steel, and not just a prefabricated Quonset hut. Small, with thick ramparts and bulky architecture, Ravenwood Station was built to withstand a war. To my great relief, I noticed shield projector rods on its outer walls. If we could get the generators running, we would be able to seal the base off from all but the most violent of attacks. Considering the story Captain Pollard had told me, I doubted that the generators would work.
The AT touched down on a small pad just outside the walls of the station. Looking out the cockpit, I watched as our landing jets vaporized the thin sheet of ice that covered the cement. The ice turned into steam that rose along the hull of the ship. Moments later, two small streams of condensation raced down the windshield and froze in place.
“I’ve transmitted your security clearance code,” the navigator said. “Your men can enter the base.” I nodded, then turned back to the window in time to see the two doors made of seven-inch-thick metal slide apart.
The fortress was completely dark inside, but that was of little concern with our night-for-day vision. I worried more about the condition of the outer walls than generators and power supplies.
I went to the bulkhead and called, “Marsten and Gubler.” Two corporals came to the front of the kettle. “Leave your rucks. I need you to have a look around the base to see what works and what is broken.”
The Clone Republic (Clone 1) Page 37