“Steady,” I answered. “They detonated the mines.”
“So we got them?” Skittles asked.
“As soon as the smoke clears, Harris, take your men and …” Moffat said.
We stared straight ahead into the haze. Night-for-day vision made no difference, we might as well have been buried in mud. Heat vision revealed fires and spent mines, but the Avatari gave off no heat signature.
“Glad we worked so hard laying those mines, eh?” Philips drawled over the interLink. “Got any ideas on what to do next?”
There was a second explosion. I saw nothing, but it stirred the cloud of dust around me.
“What was that?” Skittles asked.
“They must have detonated more mines,” Thomer said.
“Steady,” I said. Minutes passed. I could feel the tension. I could hear my men breathing heavily when I listened over the interLink. There was no chatter. The men were scared but ready to fight.
“Harris, take ’em out,” Moffat yelled.
He was ordering us to commit suicide. We had no idea what waited on the other side of that smoke. If I had been a normal clone, my neural programming would have forced me to obey, but I was a Liberator. I ignored him. What I could not ignore was the combat hormone welling up in my blood. With that hormone in my blood, the moments of waiting before we attacked were like foreplay. I wanted to get to the real thing.
The dust in the air slowly thinned. I could make out the edges of buildings against the sky. I could see more than five feet ahead of me.
“Harris, attack,” Moffat said. “That is an order.”
I said nothing.
Anything more than ten feet ahead of me was still a blur of dust and smoke. Standing in the park felt like swimming underwater. I could not see anything beyond the reeds in the pond at the base of the hill.
“Harris, I gave you an order. Acknowledge.”
Some of the dust had settled on the surface of the pond. It floated on the oil film.
I listened to my men chatter over the interLink. Skittles, too young of a Marine to be in such a desperate battle, sounded terrified as he asked his platoon leader, “Thomer, can you see them?”
“It’s okay,” Thomer said. “We’re ready for them.”
“I never thought it would be like this,” Skittles said.
“Harris, I have given you a direct order. I order you to attack.”
“Why don’t you get your natural-born ass down here and lead the attack yourself?” I asked. He could send me to the brig for saying that, and I knew it. I had been through battles before, but this one seemed different. I was in a rage. Was this the beginning of a full-fledged Liberator meltdown? I wondered if that old asshole soldier on the trip to Mars had been right about me. I wondered if I could really go out of control, and I realized that I didn’t much care.
“Watch yourself, Harris.”
“You want to send us in alone?” I asked. “You’re sending a single company against fifty thousand Mudders?”
Moffat didn’t care about killing the Avatari; this was about Philips. He wanted Philips dead, and he planned on using the Avatari as his instrument of choice. He probably didn’t give a shit if any of us clones made it out …if I died, so much the better. All of a sudden, the Avatari were no longer the enemy in my mind, Moffat was.
Then something happened. There was a flash so bright that I could see it through the dust and smoke. I turned back in time to see another building folding in on itself. The explosion made no detectable sound, but the crash of the building shook the ground.
“What the hell was that?” Philips asked.
“Shit, they’re knocking down buildings!” one of my men yelled.
“Harris, this is your last warning. Get in there!” Moffat shouted.
Without saying a word, I left the hill. I started back toward the hotels …toward the officers’ sanctuary from which Moffat was issuing orders.
“Lieutenant, where are you going?” Thomer asked as he saw me leave. I did not answer him. I was beyond speaking.
“Lieutenant, where are you going?” Thomer asked again.
“Harris, my console shows that you are moving away from the line. What the speck do you think you are specking doing?” Moffat yelled. “You and your men get your asses in there! That is an order!”
“Lieutenant Harris …?” Thomer asked. He fell in behind me, so did the rest of the company.
I stashed my particle-beam pistol—a good weapon for killing Avatari—in my armor and pulled out my M27.
“Lieutenant, what are you doing?” Thomer asked, sounding confused.
“I’m going to help Lieutenant Moffat earn his combat pay,” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A second building fell off in the background as I cut across the park. The big building fell so smoothly it seemed to sink into the ground. I looked down at my M27, wrapped my fingers around the grip, and ran my thumb along the barrel as I visualized committing murder. Thomer, Philips, and Herrington brought their platoons in behind me, but I paid them no attention. Nor did I pay any attention to Lieutenant Moffat’s nonstop ranting over the interLink.
The system had broken down, exposing a new weakness. Moffat, a prick even by natural-born-officer standards, wanted to sacrifice an entire company because he had a grudge against a single clone. Like the Liberators before me, I had given in to bloodlust. I cared more about killing Moffat than killing the enemy.
“Sergeant Philips, take your men and return to the park,” Moffat yelled. He said it over an open frequency, and every man in the company heard him. Philips ignored the order. He stayed behind me.
Officers sacrificing clones and Liberators going on a killing spree were nothing new, but a general-issue clone like Mark Philips ignoring a direct order …the fabric of military discipline had come undone. Clones of Philips’s make had autonomic obedience hardwired into their brains. For them, obeying orders was as deeply seated as their need to breathe.
“Harris, you are relieved of command,” Moffat shouted. “Philips, you and your specking platoon get your specking asses out there. Do you specking hear me, Sergeant, I specking order you to specking engage the specking enemy. I order—”
“Philips, what are you doing?” I asked.
“We go where you go, Kap-y-tan,” Philips said.
“Philips! Philips! Philips, you specking waste of DNA—” Moffat ranted like a maniac.
“I don’t need a damn posse,” I said.
“We’re not your damn posse, sir,” Philips said.
Seeing that the entire company had attached itself to me, Moffat ordered Thomer’s platoon to fall back. Thomer did as he was told. Moffat issued the same command to Herrington, who also fell back. That was good. I did not want them in the middle of this.
“Lieutenant Harris,” Thomer called.
“Shut up, Thomer,” I responded without looking back. I holstered my M27. Whatever I did once I caught up to Moffat, I would do with my bare hands.
Another building fell, but I paid no attention to it. Somewhere behind me, a fourth building fell as the Avatari began demolishing everything around them. Why should they care what they destroyed or how much damage they caused? For them, a scorched earth was as good as any.
“Harris, what the speck do you think you are doing?” Moffat asked. He was a big man, a strong man …not one to be easily intimidated.
“Harris, are we going to kill an officer?” Philips asked. “Is that what we are going to do?”
“Get out of here,” I growled at Philips. “This is between me and Moffat.”
