The Clone Redemption

“Are you saying that because Earth is the gawddamnedspecking home of humanity, we have to let those Unified bastards get away with an ambush?” asked Wallace, venom oozing from his voice. “Bullshit, Jolly! That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“We cooperated with them, and they ambushed us,” said Cutter. “That can’t go unanswered. If we let them get away with it …” He was making one of those vague, fill-in-theblank-type threats, and he let the sentence go unfinished.

“I don’t get it,” said Admiral Liotta of the Cygnus Central Fleet. “How did they catch us with our pants down? I mean, what was going on?”

“The specking bastards set us up,” said Wallace.

“Looks that way,” Liotta agreed.

Jolly turned to me, and the room went silent as he asked, “What about Olympus Kri? The reason we went there in the first place was to evacuate the planet before the aliens attacked it. Was the whole thing a trick?”

Jolly was a fat, old clone with pockets of flesh sagging from his jowls. The skin hanging down his chin and jawline reminded me of an overstuffed hammock.

“It must have been,” said Liotta.

“The aliens attacked Olympus Kri,” I said. “They have attacked three planets so far: New Copenhagen, Olympus Kri, and Terraneau.”

“How the hell do we know that’s not more Unified Authority bullshit?” asked Wallace.

“I was on Olympus Kri when they attacked. I was on Terraneau as well. The Unifieds don’t have anything powerful enough to do what the aliens did to those planets. We’d be having this discussion in the afterlife if they did.”

The officers considered my words. Finally, Admiral Jolly asked, “What’s the matter with them? Wasn’t the alien attack enough?”

“Nothing will be enough for them,” said Wallace. “The bastards came under a flag of truce.”

I had come to this meeting hoping to find a worthy successor for Warshaw, but the prospects were dim. Jolly was next in line. He had more self-control than the other two, but he came across as weak. I asked myself if I really wanted to place the Enlisted Man’s Navy in that man’s trembling hands.

Liotta asked, “Were you able to evacuate Terraneau?”

“No,” I said.

Admiral Wallace said, “I heard they wanted to join the specking Unifieds. It sounds to me like those assholes got what they deserved.”

I stared into the holographic window, but I did not focus on anyone in particular, taking in the entire scene instead of the details.

None of those officers was fit for command. Steven Jolly was weak. James Liotta was a bullshit artist. Pete Wallace was a big-talking kid. They were the rightful heirs to the throne; and if I did not choose one of them, the mutiny that would follow might spread across the fleet.

My mind wandered as the three admirals bickered among themselves. Maybe they knew this was an audition. The thought of one of these fools as my commanding officer left me depressed until I remembered a lesson from ancient Rome, the Praetorian Guard.

The Praetorian Guard protected the emperors of Rome. They also killed several of the emperors. When they did not like an emperor, they assassinated him and chose his replacement.

I hated the idea of placing Steven Jolly in charge; but if I looked at him the way the Praetorians viewed their emperors, as a disposable figurehead who got to make decisions until he proved his inability to make sound choices, then the prospects improved. The thought made me smile.

As I came back to the conversation, I heard Admiral Wallace say, “Who gives a shit about Terraneau? I’m glad those speckers died; the universe is better off without them.”

“I am not here to discuss the people of Terraneau or their place in the universe,” I said.

The look Wallace shot me could have set off a fire alarm. His face flushed red. As he glared at me, he clenched his teeth so hard that his chin quivered.

“The aliens are retaking the planets we liberated from them, and they’re not going to stop until they reach Earth,” I said. “They’re following our schedule. First we beat them on New Copenhagen, so they burned New Copenhagen first. The first planets we rescued were Olympus Kri and Terraneau. Does anybody know which planet came next?”

Some quiet discussion followed, holographic men whispering to the holographic shades beside them. Obviously, no one knew the answer. It didn’t matter, Sweetwater and Breeze would know …assuming they were willing to divulge information to enemies of the state.

“It may not have occurred to you, General, but our hands are pretty well tied,” said Jolly. “I’m here in the Perseus Arm. Curtis is in Cygnus Central. Until we find some method to program our broadcast stations, we’re stuck where we are.”

He did not mention Admiral Wallace.

“You don’t have keys?” I should have known. The late Admiral Warshaw only gave the keys to control the broadcast system to his fleet commanders—the guys who died in the ambush.

“They weren’t exactly standard-issue,” said Admiral Liotta.

“Fleet commanders only,” said Jolly.

“And all of the fleet commanders were on the Kamehameha ,” I said, finishing the statement as I held up a little device for the officers to see. It was the size of a deck of playing cards and a quarter of an inch thick. It was all black, with a touch screen.

“Warshaw gave this to me right before the attack,” I said. “I needed it to get to Terraneau.”

“Why did he give a shit about Terraneau?” asked Wallace. I noticed a certain rhythm about his speech. He managed to work profanity into every sentence. If he were a religious man, his prayers would have been specking incredible.

“If you saw what happened on Olympus Kri, you’d understand,” I said.

“What exactly happened?” asked Admiral Jolly.

“They ignited the atmosphere …lit the planet to nine thousand degrees and let it burn. By the time they got through, every living thing was incinerated.”

“And you think they’re going to do that to all of our planets?” asked Jolly.

“Not if we hit them first,” said Liotta.

Only an ass-wipe who’d never seen battle would talk like that, I thought; but I didn’t speak my mind. If things did not work out the way I hoped, I might need Liotta. Now that I had decided to turn my Marines into the new Praetorian Guard, I might need all three of these ass-wipes. The good news was that I’d only need them one at a time.

“We can’t hit them, Admiral,” I said. “It’s not like they’re flying to planets and attacking from ships. They’re hitting us from some other galaxy, a billion light-years away. We’ve already lost the war. We’re not fighting, we’re evacuating refugees.”

Silence.

“But we only have one broadcast key,” said Admiral Jolly.

“My engineers can make more,” I said.

“So we have our broadcast network back,” said Jolly.

“The way I see it, Admiral, we will be one big happy Navy in a couple of hours,” I said. Hiding my distaste for what I had to do next, I said, “Admiral Jolly, we’re going to need a supreme commander.”

“Are you placing me in charge?” asked Jolly.

“Yes, sir.”

“But you outrank Admiral Jolly,” said Liotta.

“Rank isn’t everything,” I said. “Have any of you ever heard of the Praetorian Guard?” When they shook their heads, I smiled, and said, “No? Maybe it’s for the best. They were the troops who guarded the emperors of Rome. Caesar, Caligula, Otho, they guarded all of them.”

“What’s your point?” asked Liotta, clearly unaware that the three emperors I had listed all died prematurely.

“I’m a Marine. I’m a combat officer, not the kind of man who runs empires,” I said. I gave them a crooked