The Clone Redemption

“Stow it, Humble,” Illych growled. “I want to hear what he’s saying.”

“He’s speaking in Japanese,” Humble pointed out. “You told us to pretend like we don’t understand Japanese.”

Staring straight ahead, Chief Petty Officer Kapeliela said, “Show some respect, the man is trying to honor us.”

Yamashiro filled each of the ochoko with sake. Speaking in Japanese, he ordered the SEALs to step forward. Before the ceremony began, another Japanese officer had drilled Illych and his men so that they would recognize the commands.

“This is honoring us? He’s giving us a thimbleful of rice wine and speaking in a language he doesn’t think we understand. How is this an honor?” asked Humble.

Short and sturdy, Yamashiro stood five-five, making him three inches taller than the diminutive SEAL clones. He had thick arms, a thick neck, a thick chest, and a round gut, all solidly packed together. His senior officers often speculated on whether or not he dyed his coal-colored hair. His eyes were hard and dark, and he barked the order for the twelve SEALs to lift their ochoko. He took the thirteenth cup and drank with them.

Once the SEALs had drained their sake, Yamashiro seemed to run out of words. He remained solemn as they replaced their ochoko on the table; and then he dismissed them.

Humble asked, “That’s it? He’s supposed to give us a flag and a sword. We’re supposed to read our death poems.”

“You wrote a death poem?” asked Illych.

“I wanted to get into the spirit of the occasion,” said Humble.

Illych laughed, but Humble’s complaining offended Chief Petty Officer Kapeliela. Had his neural programming allowed him to swear, he would have strung all the profanity in the English language into a single run-on sentence; but he could not do that. The Unified Authority scientists who created the SEAL clones organized their brains so that they did not have vices. The SEALs did not swear, drink, or smoke. Their selfesteem was so low that they did not approach women, not even prostitutes.

Illych and the SEALs stood at attention as Yamashiro and his officers left the landing bay of the battleship Onoda. Once they were gone, Illych gathered his SEALs beside the transport that would launch them on their mission. The transport would not take them down to the planet; but if everything went well, it would bring them back to the ship.

Kapeliela and Humble continued their argument. Humble said, “You did know that was a traditional Kamikaze farewell?”

Kapeliela grunted. “Yeah, I know. Only we’re coming back.”

“Maybe. We might think we’re coming back, but Yamashiro doesn’t,” said Humble.

The rear hatch of the transport ground open, and the SEALs shuffled in. As Illych passed, Humble asked, “Master Chief, do you think we’re coming back?” He was not afraid, just curious. The SEALs did not know fear, it was not in their neural programming.

“As long as the fleet doesn’t leave us behind,” said Illych. Like all of his men, Illych was nothing if not stoic.

The joking and bickering ended when the hatch closed, and the mission officially began. In action, the SEALs only spoke when they had a real reason.

Every SEAL had the same basic training in stealth, marksmanship, demolitions, close combat, and reconnaissance skills; but each had a specialized skill as well. During the three years since they had left Earth, the SEALs had picked up new areas of specialization. Some had studied engineering, others chemistry or physics, anything that might help when they infiltrated the enemy.

The cargo compartment of the transport was known as the “kettle” because its floor, ceiling, and windowless steel walls combined into a curbed interior. In the shadow-filled confines of the kettle, the SEALs became all but invisible. The dark gray of their complexion made them look sickly in light, but they blended in with the shadows in the dimly lit environs of the transport.

The Japanese called the SEALs kage no yasha. It meant “shadow demon.” The name referenced both their ability to vanish in the darkness and also the inhumanity of their faces. Their noses turned up so sharply they might have been snouts. Each had a thick ridge of bone forming a protruding brow over his tiny dark eyes. They were short and wiry, with entirely bald heads and clawlike fingers that could slice through skin.

Unlike other synthetics, the SEALs knew that they were clones. They knew they were ugly and were deeply ashamed of it. The Japanese made jokes about their having the faces of bats or dragons or demons. Not wanting to embarrass the Japanese, the SEALs pretended not to understand them; but in their hearts, they agreed.

“Board your caskets,” Illych told his men.

The caskets were “stealth infiltration pods” or “S.I.P.s,” coffin-sized people-fliers designed to evade all known forms of detection. Six feet long and three feet wide, S.I.P.s could travel millions of miles in an hour. They scanned for radar, sonar, and laser detection and camouflaged their own footprint. They did not have guns or steering controls. SEALs did not pilot their caskets, they went along for the ride. Trapped in tubes so tight they could do no more than breathe, the SEALs did not become claustrophobic. It was not in their programming.

Seemingly designed to make passengers uncomfortable, the cargo pit of the S.I.P. lacked so much as a shred of padding, had no lights, and no communications gear. The S.I.P. was designed for ten-minute flights and nothing longer. Natural-borns could not tolerate even ten minutes in an S.I.P., but it never occurred to Illych and his SEALs that their S.I.P.s were uncomfortable.

The launching device at the back of the transport did not simply release the pods into space; it fired them like a high-powered rifle using supermagnetism. Once launched, the pod controlled the flight itself, using a field- resonance engine that operated as silently as a gentle breeze and as untrackably as one particular raindrop in a storm.

Field-resonance engines offered one other advantage. In theory, overcharging the engine of an S.I.P. triggered a reactive explosion that would measure in the millions of megatons. These were more than bombs; they were planet colliders.

A team of technicians opened the pods and the SEALs climbed into their caskets without hesitation. Once the technicians closed the pod doors, dry gel oozed in around the SEALs to protect them against the stresses of extreme acceleration and deceleration.

Working as quickly as they could, technicians dressed in soft-shelled armor lifted the S.I.P.s into place. The launching device had a revolving carriage with chambers for twelve caskets that the techs loaded like bullets.

The transport had been specially equipped with a stealth generator. Sitting only five hundred thousand miles outside the planet’s atmosphere, cloaked by the generator, the little ship was invisible, even to the Japanese Fleet. The pilot purged the air from the kettle, then he shut off the engines and all of the lights as he opened the rear hatch. This was the mission’s most vulnerable moment. With the hatch open, and the S.I.P.s in place, the stealth generator could no longer hide the transport.

Per special orders given them by Admiral Yamashiro, the sailors raised a hand in salute and shouted BANZAI as the device fired each pod into space.

The SEALs did not hear their cheers. InterLink transmissions did not penetrate the walls of their pods. For the duration of their flight, the SEALs heard nothing more than the sound of their own breathing as they streaked through space. Barely larger than old-fashioned space suits, the pods carried their cargo a half million miles in a matter of seconds.

In the history of mankind, no human had ever traveled so far in such a small vessel. Tasked with saving humanity, the SEALs went to space with equipment that Congress had previously labeled “too expensive to be practical.” Concerns about practicality vanished when it came to saving the human race.

It cost approximately eighty million dollars to build a stealth infiltration pod. The SEALs had brought five thousand of them to Bode’s Galaxy.

The pods traveled from the transport to the planet at top speed and did not slow until they pierced the atmosphere, leaving no more traces of their entry than needles slicing steam. Invisible to radar, sonar, and visual contact, the pods continued their computer-controlled deceleration until they touched down at the preappointed