The Clone Elite

islands and steel gray water. Along the shore stood rows of trackers—motion-tracking robots that looked like barber poles. I’d seen trackers armed with everything from machine guns to missiles. These trackers had heavy- caliber machine guns and particle-beam cannons.

“I’d hate to be the alien that tries to cross that lake,” Thomer said. “You’d be wide open with no place to hide.”

“What if they’re waterproof?” I asked. “Those things might be able to walk along the bottom of the lake.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that,” Philips said. “The stuff they have in the water makes a machine-gun colonic look like an act of mercy. If there’s so much as a tadpole alive in that pond, I’d be surprised.”

“Have you ever seen a buildup like this?” Thomer asked me.

“Nope, not like this,” I said.

“They must be doing ten times as much on Earth,” Thomer said.

“Don’t count on it,” I said. “I think they sent their best men and equipment here.”

“Bullshit,” Philips said.

“That’s not just talk?” Thomer asked.

“Look around. There are over a million well-armed troops here. We have tanks, jets, and orbital support. Thomer, if we can’t pull this one out, there’s no point in trying again on Earth.”

“I heard they had three times this many men on Terraneau,” Philips said.

“They didn’t know what they were up against,” I said.

“Do you know what we’re up against?” Philips asked. “They haven’t told us shit.” He sounded angry. I didn’t blame him.

“Are they trying to find someplace safe to settle?” Thomer asked.

“Not in this galaxy,” I said.

Silence followed. We drove through town. Thomer and Philips took me on a circuitous route to show me all of the installations the Corps of Engineers had under way, but they had lost their enthusiasm once I said this was the final stand. Philips drove to our camp—a luxury hotel that had been converted into the most comfortable base in the history of the Marines. While he and Thomer returned the jeep to the motor pool, I reported in.

Once in my room on the twenty-third floor of the hotel, I changed into my bodysuit and armor. As I stowed away my clothes, I noticed a message on the communications console beside my bed. The base commander wanted me to report to his office ASAP.

CHAPTER NINE

“So you are the man I have heard so much about?” First Lieutenant Warren Moffat said, as I stepped out of the elevator and onto the mezzanine floor. He sat on a white leather sofa just outside the glass doors that led to what had once been the hotel’s administrative offices.

“The way I hear it, you single-handedly won the Mogat War, Harris.”

I did not like the way this conversation had started. He did not mean what he’d said as a compliment, he meant it as a challenge. He had just accused me of taking credit for the sacrifices of dead Marines, and the guy was clearly looking for a fight.

“I’m looking for Base Command,” I said, knowing I had already found it, but hoping to derail this conversation.

“You’re standing in it,” Moffat said. “General Glade asked me to wait for you. Guess you’re here.” He rose to his feet.

I started ahead, but the lieutenant stepped in front of me. “Let me give you a quick prebriefing, XO. I run the company. I run the show. I don’t care if you are a specking Liberator. I don’t care if you survived the specking Mogat invasion. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you turn out to be the next specking messiah, you got that?

“I am company commander, and that puts me one seat away from God Almighty as far as you are concerned. Cross that line, boy, and I will fry your ass. I will personally shove my particle-beam pistol up every hole you got, then I will shove it up the new holes I make.” He stood with his face less than an inch from mine. Filaments of spit flew from his lips and splattered my cheeks.

“Will that be all?” I asked.

“I’m just getting started, Harris,” Moffat said. He was in a rage, but he kept his voice low. A vein had appeared across his forehead. It started between his eyebrows and disappeared under his hairline. His face was red with rage.

Like every officer in the Marine Corps except me, Moffat was a natural-born. He was a big man. I stood six- foot-three, and he had a couple of inches on me. He had muscular arms. His biceps and triceps bulged under the sleeves of his shirt. I could see a few small scars on his scalp under the fine brown bristle of his hair. The boy had been a tough customer; probably a football star or wrestler in college.

“If General Glade thinks you’re something special, that’s his problem, asshole!” Moffat continued. “You got that? You may have friends in high places, but I have friends of my own, asshole. Do you hear me? You try to make yourself the hero again, and I will flatten you into a specking statistic. I will turn you into K.I.A. roadkill so fast you won’t have time to wet yourself.” As he said this, he placed a hand on my shoulder.

He should not have put his hand on me. Now I found myself angered to the point that I began to have a Liberator combat reflex. The hormone was beginning to flow through my blood, soothing me and pushing me to attack at the same time. Struggling to keep my temper in check, I brushed Moffat’s hand from my sleeve. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I growled, still hoping to keep my growing need for violence in check

Huuuuhhh Huhhhh. General James Ptolemeus Glade stood at the door behind Moffat clearing his throat. At that moment, I thought his throat-clearing ceremony was meant to catch our attention. It wasn’t. I soon learned that he made the same noise during speeches, meals, and probably in his sleep.

“Is this our new man, Lieutenant?” he asked Moffat.

“Yes, sir,” Moffat said, taking a step back from me. “This is the famous Lieutenant Harris.”

“Out of my way. Moffat. Out of my way. Let’s have a look at him,” Glade said. He gave me a quick inspection, then invited Moffat and me to follow him into the admin offices. “Lieutenant Harris, I’ve read your record. It’s a pleasure to have a Marine of your caliber under my command.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, feeling more than a little off balance. Generals did not, as a rule, pay attention to the lieutenants under their command, let alone greet them.

“I hear you fought on Little Man and in the Mogat invasion. You’ve been in on the big ones, haven’t you, Lieutenant.” Then his smile tightened. “Scuttlebutt around command is that you once shot a colonel in the line of duty. Is that true, Harris?”

“I’ve heard the rumor,” I said.

“The way I hear it, it’s not just a rumor. I heard you shot Aldus Grayson,” General Glade said. “Now, I knew Grayson.”

Oh shit, I thought to myself.

Glade put on a good “plain folks” persona, but looking into his eyes, I could tell that he was shrewd and keenly aware of everything around him. “I went through Annapolis in the same class as Grayson. We graduated from the academy the same year, he and I and about ten thousand other cadets.

“I’m not sure Annapolis ever saw a more pompous, self-aggrandizing, useless cadet than Aldus Grayson, if you know what I mean—but I hate to think he was shot by one of his own.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

As I watched Glade, I realized that he had not said this for my benefit. He was delivering a message to Moffat. His eyes bore into the first lieutenant’s, expressly driving home the message with one last phrase, “Though I suppose it’s sensible to shoot dogs and officers when they go rabid.”

Only a ten-man staff worked in Glade’s administrative office. The generals and admirals I had met prior to Glade all insulated themselves with bloated staffs. Glade, who rose through the ranks on the battlefield, kept as small an entourage as possible.

“Like my offices?” Glade asked me.

“Very elegant, sir,” I said.