The Clone Alliance

into the station. Rumsfelds lurked in the distance, rumbling in like dinosaurs. I sat on the edge of the doorway with my feet dangling down as I unstrapped that shooter. “Philips, pass me my helmet,” I said.

Each of the tanks had brown camouflage paint and a golden crown painted on its turrets. The Targs had formed an elliptical row about forty feet from the station. They fired cannons into the station in rapid and unordered succession. I saw the flashes, then heard the rumble of their guns a split second later.

Hoping to create an uncrossable puddle, I planned to fire distilled shit gas into the street behind the station. Distilled shit gas was heavy, and that puddle would last for hours. I would shoot canisters of noxium gas in front of the station to clear a path. In the open air, the noxium would do its work and evaporate in a minute.

“If you see gas floating in your direction, run,” I said over the platoon-wide band.

“In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve got tanks out there,” Greer said.

“Not for long,” I said as I loaded a canister of noxium gas into my shooter.

“When I give you the signal, I want you to run,” I said.

“They’ll hit us,” Greer said.

“Take my word on this one, Greer,” I said. “Getting hit by a shell would be a lot better than waiting around for this shit.” I fired. The canister sailed through the air so slowly that I could actually watch it as it hurtled toward the target. The shot lobbed over the roof of the train station. A moment later, the top of a silver-white cloud appeared in the air.

I quickly loaded a canister of distilled shit gas and fired behind the train station. The canister flew into the center of the tanks, where it vanished in a rapidly spreading cloud of brown haze.

“That gas won’t hurt those tanks,” Philips said, as I loaded another canister of shit gas. “They have shields.”

“It won’t hurt the outside of those tanks,” I said, and squeezed off the next shot, lobbing this canister deeper into the tank column. “Those boys have to breathe something. It’s like spraying insects.”

Philips handed me the next canister. It was gray—noxium gas. I loaded it into the shooter and fired over the roof of the train station.

“Get running!” I yelled to my squad leaders.

Philips handed me another canister of distilled shit gas. I raised my trajectory and fired at the Rumsfelds in the distance. Dinosaurs that they were, the first of the Rumsfelds charged straight ahead, directly into the spreading cloud. Philips handed me another canister. I loaded it and fired deeper into their lines. I did not want any stragglers to escape.

One of the Rumsfelds fired back.

“Incoming,” I yelled, bracing myself in the door of the train for cover.

The shell hit the train like a giant hammer. Standing below me, Philips lost his balance and fell, his arms cradling the canister-filled helmet. The canisters did not break. They were designed not to break until fired, but I did not want to test the quality of their manufacture.

“Give me a brown one,” I told Philips.

Tanks were now coming in our direction. I reached down without saying a word, and he slapped the canister into my hand. I loaded and fired at the tanks, and they fired at us.

“Duck!” I yelled, as I dropped into the train.

Philips placed his helmet top down on the floor and laid over it, cradling it in his arms. If he’d seen what those gases could do to a man, he would not have been so brave.

One shell hit the train, followed by a second, then a third and a fourth, in rapid succession. Then there was silence.

I emptied the remaining canisters out of my helmet, then pulled my helmet down over my head. I called my squad leaders. “Report.”

“What was that?” Thomer asked.

“What is your status?” I asked.

“Safe for now,” Evans said. “We made it to an apartment building.”

“What did you hit them with?” Thomer repeated.

“Bug spray,” I said. “Be ready to make a quick exit from your building. The reason they brought that shit out here was to feed it to you.”

General Crowley, I thought to myself. The son of a bitch was always ahead of the game. He knew that if we made it to this planet, we would hide in buildings with tank-proof shields; and he found a way around it. Gas the buildings, and the occupants would die. Bastard.

CHAPTER FIFTY

“What are you doing?” Philips asked, as I headed back into the car with all of the gas canisters. The shelling had stopped but more Rumsfelds were undoubtedly on the way. The last place he wanted to be was in a train car carrying canisters filled with deadly gases. I didn’t want to go back there any more than he did.

I had not worked with Ray Freeman for two full years without learning a trick or two. The man did not talk much, but he knew the angles for every situation. He knew how to find winning solutions to desperate situations and how to turn traps to his advantage.

“The Mogats know we’re here,” I said as I pulled a grenade from my armor. Grenades were all-purpose devices. You could pull the pins and toss them, or you could program them, then pull the pins. In this case, I programmed the grenade for maximum yield and set it to explode on impact, then I pulled the pin and laid it to rest between two canisters of distilled shit gas. Then I set three more grenades the same way.

“They know we’re in the train, and they’re coming after us,” I said. “They’re probably going to shell the train to shake us loose, right?” I patted the second grenade to make sure it was snug. Those canisters were designed to not explode until fired from a shooter, but I had the feeling that a grenade might do the trick.

Looking around the car, I did not find what I wanted. I rushed to the next car and found it—a small airtight case for carrying canisters. As I pulled it off a shelf, a Mogat moaned and stirred on the floor. I shot him, then went back and fitted eight canisters of noxium gas and four canisters of distilled shit gas into the case.

Satisfied that I had the right load, I headed for a doorway through which I could leave the train. I had the canister shooter strapped over my shoulder. I carried my M27 in my right hand and the case of gas canisters in my left. I also had two canisters of noxium gas tucked into my armor. If anything broke those canisters…

“Where are you going?” Philips asked.

“That way,” I said, pointing to my left. The Mogats were coming from the right. Using the telescopic lens in my visor, I could see two waves of tanks on the way. The rear guard were Rumsfelds, slow, vicious machines. The first wave were Targ Tanks. They were still five miles back, but they would close that gap quickly. There were hundreds of them this time. These guys could tell what I had done to the first wave. They would skirt around the gas.

“I’m headed that way and going as fast as I can.” I swung my legs over the edge of the train and hopped off.

“Why left?” Philips asked.

“Do you want to head right?” I asked.

“Guess not,” Philips said. The ground was still covered with distilled shit gas in that direction. If he used his telescopic lens, he would have seen the next column of tanks coming from behind us. He slid down the roof of the train and landed next to me.

“Those tanks back there are going to start shelling this train in another minute,” I said. “That will set off my grenade, gas will leak…”

“That gas is going to leak out of every orifice,” Philips said. I was going to say doorway, but I preferred his description.

“Harris, you better beat it out of there,” Evans called over the interLink. “The whole frigging Mogat Army is headed in your direction.”

“Where are you?” I asked. “Give me a beacon on your building,”