The Clone Redemption (33 page)

Yamashiro stepped onto the ramp, returned the salute, and forced himself to enter the transport without looking back.

Captain Takahashi Hironobu watched as the sled pulled the transport toward the first atmospheric lock. Low and squat, with tiny wings that looked like an engineering afterthought, the transport rolled past the blast doors and stopped to wait as the lock closed behind it. The metal blast doors closed slowly, taking fifteen seconds to slide into place.

How will they remember us?
Takahashi asked himself.
When their batteries run dry and their generators break and the technology that launched them does not survive to the next generation, will they believe in space travel or write us off as a myth? Will they see us as martyrs or saviors? Will the parents of some future generation teach their children that gods placed them on this planet and promised to return?

Takahashi thought about his wife and how much he missed her. He missed the children, too, of course. If the Morgan Atkins Believers had never declared their civil war, and the aliens had not invaded the galaxy, the Takahashi family would have remained on Ezer Kri. He would have grown old watching his children mature into adults and start families of their own.

If the Broadcast Network had not been destroyed, he could contact them. Even from New Copenhagen, light-years away, he could have told his wife that he loved her and seen how his children had grown. He wanted to see his family again, just once before he died; but Earth was at war again, and he could not approach the planet without risking everything.

Takahashi was not alone in the landing bay. SEALs and a handful of technicians had come to prepare infiltration pods for the attack. He watched as one Japanese technician and three SEALs carried a pod to a computer station. A SEAL attached a line from the computer to the S.I.P. as the tech typed on the screen.

Takahashi approached the technician, and asked, “Ensign, how many pods do we have?”

The man grunted without looking back to see who had asked the question. He casually looked up from his work, then snapped to attention. Fear showing on his face, he saluted.

Takahashi returned the salute and repeated his question, “How many pods are left?”

“Sir, I have not checked the inventory, sir,” said the technician.

Doing a credible imitation of his father-in-law, Takahashi growled, “Go check.”

The man saluted and ran.

Be polite,
Takahashi reminded himself.
This man will die in a few minutes preserving the colony.

Takahashi wondered if the man would mutiny if he knew the turn that his life was about to take. The captain had complete confidence in the SEALs, though. They knew what was coming.

The captain returned their salutes, studied their faces, then grunted, “As you were.”

The SEALs quietly went back to preparing the S.I.P.s. The bombs. They were preparing the very bombs that would end their lives. They were digging their own graves.

“Captain Takahashi, sir, we have 1,118 pods, sir,” the ensign said as he returned.

Ten of these should be enough to destroy a planet. We might be able to collapse a star with twenty of them,
he thought. “Prepare one hundred pods,” he told the ensign. “I want them in place and charged within the next five minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said. He saluted again and relayed the order to the other teams. There was something strange in the way the ensign spoke. Maybe it was an odd note in the voice, maybe it was the frightened look in his eyes.

That was when Takahashi realized that, like the SEALs, his crewmen knew that they were about to die. On some level, they knew. They might not have known the mechanics of their fate, but they knew how the mission would end.

The pods look like coffins,
Takahashi thought as he watched SEALs wheeling S.I.P.s into the bay. He had never seen one up close, but now he saw that they looked like coffins, oblong, man-sized, loaf-shaped boxes with rounded corners and convex surfaces on all sides. They were black with a dull gloss sheen. And they had no visible engines, no rockets, no thrust chambers or manifolds. Whatever propelled them was concealed inside their smooth shells.

In the darkened landing bay, with a few lights shining in the ceiling and the low glow of the computer stations, Takahashi stood fascinated by the coffin-shaped bombs and the demonlike men preparing them. He thought,
It will all be over soon. Just another few minutes, and it will all be over.

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.”

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 with 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.