down the hall. The electrician remained where he was, standing on a foot-tall step ladder, probing around that open panel.
Traveling down the next two decks, I passed almost no one. Perhaps a shift had ended and a smaller crew had replaced it. Maybe it was lunchtime and most of the sailors were eating.
That last corridor that led to the launch bay was entirely empty. The thud of my boots created an indistinct echo as I walked through that brightly-lit stretch. Everything was going so smoothly, I had no doubt that I would slip off the ship soon.
The next time I saw people was as I drew near the landing bay. Two men walked silently down an intersecting corridor. They wore the khaki uniforms of regular officers rather than the blue uniforms of the Japanese, and they fell in quietly behind me as I continued toward the bay. I expected them to turn into some door or another, but they did not. They continued straight ahead, walking at the same pace as me.
I thought about turning into the next door or hall that I passed, but there were no more doors until the ones leading into the bay. I pretended to be unaware of the men. I did not look back and I did not slow down. Neither did the men behind me.
With no other choice, I entered the landing area. A lone transport sat in the middle of the hangar, its hatch hung open. A small crowd stood on the ramp leading into the kettle. I counted three medics and six MPs, and in the center of them, placed on the bare metal ramp like a cadaver on a mortuary slab, lay Derrick Hines, stripped down to his briefs.
The muzzle of a gun jabbed into my back and a voice said, “How do you like that, boys, we have our first prisoner.”
If there was one kind of naval design that did not change with the times, it was brig. I once ran security for the
I lay on my cot staring up at the charcoal-gray ceiling. For a change of scenery, I sometimes turned to look at the charcoal-gray walls. These cells were the ultimate in ease when it came to housekeeping. You simply pulled the mattress out and sprayed everything down with a steam hose. The floor was a grating that led to a drain.
Mercifully, they had stripped me down to my briefs before throwing me in the cell. Those coveralls reeked. From what I could tell, the late Derrick Hines hadn’t washed them for weeks. I might have been a bit cold in this cell, but at least I could breathe.
Had the brig been darker, I might have slept. The lights in the hall were too bright.
I think I knew why Liberators got addicted to violence, we became morose when we just laid around. I thought about the diary from Saint Germaine in which that priest and Tabor Shannon argued about whether or not Liberators had souls. I bought into both arguments and decided that perhaps we had worthless souls. I thought about Freeman. Had he arrived in Safe Harbor yet? I wondered about his family on Little Man. What would the Navy do?
Forced to guess how long I had been in this cell, I might have said three hours. It could have been longer. It could have been shorter. With no sun coming up and no events by which to gauge time, my internal clock was all but useless.
Footsteps echoed down the hall as the men came to look in my cell. My jailors looked in on me through the bars. Both men wore khaki uniforms. One was a tall man with blond hair, the other had dark brown locks.
“Hello, Harris,” the blond man said.
I glanced in their direction. I remained flat on my back on the cot. I wanted to test them. I was their first prisoner. Would they know how to treat me and how to control me, or would they make mistakes? If they were naive enough, I could end up in charge even though I was the one behind the bars.
“Comfortable, Harris?” the blond man asked.
“Hope you didn’t go to too much trouble getting my name,” I said.“ I would have told you if you had asked.”
“Really? I always heard that Liberator clones were tougher than that,” the blond man said. “You knew you were a clone, right? I mean, I would hate for you to have one of those death reflex things and keel over right here.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“So you’re a Liberator. I always thought your kind would be bigger. I mean, aren’t you guys the planet exterminators?”
I looked toward the man. “You must be a Mogat,” I said in as dismissive a voice as I could muster.
“The term is Morgan Atkins Believer. I suggest you remember that, Harris, or your stay here could become real unpleasant.” The humor never left his face, but his voice turned serious.
Now that I stopped to look, I saw that this was not a man to take lightly. He had a broad and powerful build. His bull neck was almost as wide as his jaw, making it look like he had a pointed head. The muscles in his shoulders bulged, but this was not the beautiful physique of a bodybuilder. This man had padding around his gut.
“Learn anything else?” I asked.
The second man outside my cell, a short chubby man with the brown hair, stepped forward with a data pad and answered. “Harris, Wayson, Colonel, Unified Authority Marines. Raised: U.A. Orphanage # five hundred fifty- three. Year of Manufacture: 2490. Clone Class: Liberator.
“How does a clone, especially a Liberator Clone, achieve the rank of colonel?” the dark-haired man asked.
“You want to know how I became a colonel?” I asked.
“I want to know why you exist at all,” the man said. “How did you find your way on this ship?”
“Do you want the full story or the abbreviated version?” With this I sat up.
“Let’s stick with the short one for now,” the man with the data pad said.
“I caught a ride on your transport when it left New Columbia.”
The blond-haired man, clearly my jailor, smiled and gave me a vigorous nod. “Know what Harris, I believe you. An honest clone, no less.”
“May I ask a question?”
“Go ahead,” the man with the data pad said. The jailor scowled at him.
“Is this ship part of the Hinode Fleet, or part of the Confederate Navy, or part of the Galactic Central Fleet?”
“None of your business,” the man with the blond hair said.
“Confederate Navy,” the man with the dark hair said. The bigger man, the jailor, scowled at him.
“It depends who you ask, I suppose,” the blond man continued to glare down at him.
“So what is the Hinode Fleet?”
“Another name for the same bunch of ships,” the smaller man said.
“Do you have more than one fleet?” I asked.
“No,” the man admitted.
“Shut up,” the jailor snapped.
“He’s in jail, Sam, and he’s down to his skivvies. How is he going to tell anyone?” Then the man seemed to think twice about this before adding, “We will ask the questions from here on out, Harris. We have not decided what to do with you yet. I suggest you conduct yourself properly. Execution is not out of the question.”
They left me in my cell with nothing to do and no way of knowing how much time passed. I laid on the cot in my underwear staring at the ceiling and tried to piece together all of the little fragments of information I had collected. It seemed like the separatists had a genuine Power Struggle on their hands. They had an alliance, but all three sides were claiming the Navy for themselves.
Why did the Japanese officers wear different uniforms than the other men? Did the Mogats consider themselves part of the Confederate Arms? Did the Japanese? My thoughts drifted and I fell asleep.
