The Clone Redemption (38 page)

“Did it help?”

“The next morning, I felt like someone had stabbed a knife into my skull, that wasn't helpful. I was still a clone, getting drunk didn't change that. It softened the blow. It got me through that first night.”

“Maybe I need to do that,” he said. “We've got an excellent bar on the Wheel.”

“Don't hit it too hard, we need you sober. They made you so you puke and piss and fall down when you get drunk. The original you didn't handle liquor so well, and the virtual you won't handle it any better,” I said.

“I doubt they will allow me to die in an intoxicated stupor.”

Still sounding battle-weary, Breeze said, “There's enough air to start a colony on Terraneau, but you're going to need an oxygen generator until you establish a significant plant population. Farming is going to be a problem. The surface soil is ruined. Your colonists are going to need to dig three feet down to find soil that can sustain life.”

“But it can be done?” I asked.

“I am always amazed by the things human beings achieve when their backs are against a wall, General.”

Was he talking about our colonists or the men who programmed him? Was he talking to them or me?

“We ran soil and atmosphere samples on an area near Norristown. Planetwide, the radiation levels are stable and acceptable. The air quality is low but tolerable. I recommend wearing rebreathers until you get oxygen generators in place. I've also checked for tachyon residue. There is no trace of Tachyon D on Terraneau.” Breeze was all business as he said this. Then his tone lightened as he added, “Now, if you'll excuse me, General, I am going to go drink myself into a coma.”

With that he signed off.

Ray Freeman smiled. He even laughed. It wasn't much of a laugh, just a quick “Huh” that sounded a little like the noise some Marines make when they are doing sit-ups.

“Maybe I shouldn't have told him,” I mumbled to myself.

Freeman shook his head, and said, “I would have shot you if you'd lied.”

During their stints as commander in chief, Steven Jolly and Curtis Liotta had given orders, but they never really took charge. They were apprehensive leaders, too fainthearted to issue orders and face the consequences. Once Jim Holman ascended to admiral, he took charge.

Watching him conduct this meeting, I realized just how much I liked Holman's style. There was nothing imperial in his demeanor. He cared about his men, but he also made the tough decisions when he needed to. Seeing him speak, I realized that the empire was finally in capable hands now that its highest-ranking officers were out of the way.

Holman began his command by calling his captains together. He did not use a confabulator for the meeting. This was no remote conference with people popping in from all over the galaxy. Nor was it a lavish summit for fleet commanders only.

The captains of every destroyer, dreadnaught, battleship, and carrier sat in the audience. So did every regiment commander from the Marines. I sat beside the commanders of the thirteen fleets on the dais, watching them try to look comfortable though they had no idea why Holman had called the assembly.

Most of the commanders I had known during my career took charge slowly, giving their officers time to gossip and spread rumors. Given the opportunity, fear will work its way through fleets like a virus, infecting every sailor and Marine. Holman did not wait for that to happen. Now that he ran the show, he took charge.

Before the rumors spread, he called his men together. He did not mince words. Instead of starting with standard-issue apologies and promises, he began the meeting by saying, “Let me explain the situation. We have evacuated the populations of Gobi, Bangalore, and Nebraska Kri to Providence Kri. In all, there are now twenty million people on Providence Kri. We now need to move them off the planet.

“From what we can tell, the aliens will burn Providence Kri sometime within the next eight days. That gives us eight days to move twenty million refugees and gather as many supplies as we can.”

There were fourteen of us sitting on the dais—thirteen fleet commanders and me. We sat in simple chairs with straight backs and hard seats. Holman stood at a podium about twenty feet in front of us, wearing the proud white dress uniform of the Unified Authority Navy. (It had only been a year since we had declared independence, and new uniforms were not a priority.) Mostly, from where I sat, he was a silhouette. The bright lights in the ceiling above the audience pointed back on him, their crystal white glare both blinding and bleaching. For us at the back of the dais, the gallery below the stage and the lights was a sea of black, as silent as it was dark.

“It's not just a question of evacuating Providence Kri. New Carillon, Uchtdorf, and St. Augustine will all be burned within the next seven days. The next week will be a nonstop rescue operation.” Here Holman laid his cards out on the table, spelling out the size and scope of the operation so that every man in the room could understand. “By this time next week, we will have transported thirty-two million people to a new planet. Know this, gentlemen. Anyone we miss will die.”

The officers respected Holman. They did not whisper among themselves as he spoke.

“Our only chance of survival is to establish a colony on a planet that the aliens have already attacked. I'm not going to lie to you. It's not going to be easy. Scientists have run tests on the air, water, and soil. The air is breathable but thin. We will take oxygen generators. The water is polluted, but not so badly polluted that it cannot be filtered. We will need to dig a few feet down to plant crops. These are obstacles we can overcome.”

A soft rumble rose from the audience. Holman ignored it. He stood behind the podium, short and slender, with the glare of the lights making his red hair and beard look like they were on fire. He might have been a clone, but he was an instantly recognizable one.

He told the audience, “We are going to colonize Terraneau.”

That shut everybody down. They all knew the planet. Terraneau had been the capital of the Scutum-Crux Arm, the outermost arm of the Milky Way. We had all been raised to judge places by their position relative to Earth. Terraneau was just about as far as you could get from Earth without leaving the galaxy.

“As many of you know, the Unified Authority patrols that area. Our barges will be vulnerable.” Holman stood silent for several seconds. When he began speaking again, he changed his train of thought.

“The Navy has asked a lot of you over the last month, and you have delivered. Now I'm going to ask even more of you than ever. Some of you will be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. In order for this plan to work, we will need to draw the U.A. Fleet away from Providence Kri and Terraneau. That means opening a front that will draw the Unified Authority's forces away. We are going to invade Earth.”

Down in the darkness, a single voice shouted, “Hell, yeah!” The entire room went silent for a moment, then burst into laughter and applause. Holman made no attempt to stop the applause. He let it run its course.

“We've run a recon mission to evaluate the Unified Authority's military strength. We sent a spy ship into Earth space and found fewer than sixty capital ships patrolling the lanes. They detected our anomaly, and seven more ships broadcasted in. As far as we can tell, that is their entire fleet, sixty-five capital ships.

“It is entirely possible they have a few additional ships in reserve. They may have as many as eighty ships, but we have seen most of what they have.”

A possibility of eighty ships ... Fifteen hundred men sat in the audience, each representing a capital ship in the Enlisted Man's Navy. We had seventy-seven fighter carriers and 229 battleships. Maybe they sank our ships when they caught our stragglers, but they would never survive an all-out assault. Their ships would not last long outnumbered seventy-seven to one. Our numbers would be overwhelming ... at least they would be overwhelming in space.

“We're going to send a ground force as well as a naval attack,” Holman said. “Crippling their navy will not be enough for us to achieve our objectives. We need to uproot the Unified Authority government and all. We need to occupy Earth.”

Everyone in the room knew what that meant—we would send our Marines to fight their soldiers and Marines. At last count, we had three million fighting men. We'd have the numbers and the superior firepower. They'd have shielded armor that would neutralize our firepower and render our numerical advantage meaningless.

Forty-five minutes,
I reminded myself. The batteries that powered their shields would only last forty-five minutes. If we survived the first hour ... If ...

“Win or lose, there will be no returning from Earth. The Unified Authority has a temporary broadcast station near Mars. We believe they will destroy the station at the first sign of an invasion. Before I assign men to the invasion, I am going to ask for volunteers.”

The enthusiasm vanished. No one spoke as the electricity drained from the air.

“We're going to reserve one-third of our fleet to escort our barges, the rest of you will be assigned to the invasion. Any captain who wishes to enlist his ship in the invasion, please stand.”

The blinding lights rolled from Holman and down to the audience. My eyes were tired from the glare, and the druginduced drumming in my head made it difficult to concentrate; but when the lights shone on the gallery, it looked like every man was on his feet.

The meeting ended much the way it had begun. Holman got the ball rolling by summing up a bad situation. He finished by thanking his officers for their courage, then reminded them that our struggles would extend long beyond the combat.

“Once we establish our colony on Terraneau, every day will bring new battles. We will need to fight to plant crops, then keep those crops alive. Finding water will be a struggle. So will establishing a new nation.

“Those of us invading Earth will be tasked with governing a hostile planet. You will guard the planet until the aliens attack, then, if you survive, you will face the same day-to-day challenges that we will face on Terraneau.

“We are going to divide our forces, and neither side will ever know if the other side survived. Earth will be removed from our broadcast grid. The only way we will know if the invasion of Earth succeeded is if it fails, and the Unified Authority attacks us.”

As he closed the meeting, Holman said, “I came here hoping for a few volunteers. Nearly all of you have volunteered. Because of your bravery, I must decide which of you will escort our barges to Terraneau. Those of you I assign to Terraneau will have the easier job.”

He should have known these men would volunteer for the harder duty once he leveled with them. I'd wager that none of them had ever seen an admiral willingly level with his men. With one quick speech, Holman had raised himself from admiral to messiah.

Besides, their neural programming included the drive to volunteer. They would pick the harder job, and they would fight; but that didn't mean they would like it. I knew, because I didn't like it. Holman had originally asked me to ride the barges, and I refused. I was going to face the Earth Fleet. If I survived, I would face the aliens. If I survived again, I would colonize a scorched planet. I volunteered for the hard fight. I hated myself for doing it.

Earth was due for a baking, and Holman would not send the barges back to Earth once he'd landed everyone on Terraneau. He couldn't; without a working broadcast station, the Sol System would become a dead end. No one and nothing he sent to Earth would ever return, including his Fleet and his Marines.

With eight hours to go before I left for Earth, I flew to Hightower—a city left desolate after the first Avatari invasion, now densely populated with refugees from other planets and the clone servicemen who rescued them. Ava was there, somewhere.

In the past, I could always find her. She was a celebrity, a movie star, and always the prettiest woman in town. Men learned where she lived for the same reason that true believers memorize the locations of religious shrines. Before the Avatari had reduced the planet to ashes, Ava-fascination had spread like a virus on Terraneau. Ask any woman in Norristown if she'd ever seen Ava, and she would tell you where Ava lived, her place of employment, and the latest gossip.

I flew down to Providence Kri, believing I would find a similar situation in Hightower. As I left the spaceport, I asked a civilian security guard if he knew where I could find Ava Gardner. An older man with salt-and-pepper hair and sixty pounds of extra gut, the guard grinned at me, said, “In my dreams,” and walked away.

The spaceport was all but abandoned. Military transports flew in and out of the city, but Holman had not yet begun the evacuation. I walked long, empty halls, brightly lit and large enough to accommodate thousands of people at a time. In another few hours, refugees would fill the halls beyond capacity. I'd seen too many evacuations over the last few years. Given a choice between a battlefield or a mass evacuation, I would take the battlefield every time.

When I reached the terminal lobby, I saw that work had already begun to stage the evacuation. Marines in Charlie service uniforms, complete with MP armbands, were lining up guardrails and assembling checkpoints and help stations. They saw my uniform and snapped to attention. A major, a clone well into his fifties, stepped out to meet me.

“General, sir, no one notified us that you were coming,” he said as he saluted.

I returned the salute, and said, “Yes, I'm a bit surprised myself.”