The Clone Redemption

scuffed-up Unified Authority cruiser complete with stealth shield and broadcast engine.

Technically speaking, my crew was AWOL; but I was the highest-ranking officer in the fleet and the head of the new Praetorian Guard. I’d pardon the infraction. It was a small crew. I hoped no one would notice.

“Admiral Liotta’s going to shit himself when he finds out we took this ship,” said Captain Holman, the corners of his mouth twitching as he held back a smile.

“You’re not thinking of backing out?” I asked.

“Not a chance. I just get a kick out of the idea of Liotta shitting himself.”

I liked Jim Holman. He was casual. He was relaxed. He was also easy to recognize with that red hair and beard.

We could have broadcasted in within a hundred thousand miles of Solomon, but Holman brought us in beside the Solomon broadcast station—a satellite that had fallen out of orbit and been left to drift as the planet it once circled traveled around its sun.

He did not reveal his flight plan to me until after the broadcast. “Why exactly are we taking the scenic route?” I asked.

“Broadcasting in beside a working broadcast station provides good camouflage,” he said. “If the Unifieds are out there, they’ll detect the anomaly but they won’t see our ship. They’ll think debris floated into the broadcast zone.”

“Clever,” I said.

“Basic tactics,” Holman said.

I doubted Curtis Liotta knew about it.

“Besides, I’m not supposed to be here. If Admiral Liotta knew I came with you, he’d throw me in the brig.”

“I appreciate the ride. I just wondered why we took the longer route.”

Holman was right, Liotta would have court-martialed Holman if he had known about the mission. “Why are you here?” I asked.

“Do you want the long answer or the short one?” asked Holman.

“Might as well give me the long answer, we’ve got time to kill,” I muttered.

Holman laughed. “I have a personal stake in this trip. I’m transporting contraband.”

“You’re smuggling contraband to a planet that’s about to get scorched?” I asked.

“It’s not really contraband, and I’m not smuggling it …and it’s not going to the planet exactly. General, I think you are going to like this.” He left the ship’s tiny bridge and motioned for me to follow him. “Let’s make a quick inspection of the forward cargo bay,” he said.

I thought maybe Holman had brought a stash of booze for the ride. Though it would have taken a barrel of hooch to get me drunk, a stiff drink sounded good; and Holman absolutely struck me as the kind of officer who might enjoy an occasional libation while crossing long stretches of open space.

“I wish I could take credit for this,” he said as he led me down the hall. “Scott Mars came up with the idea.”

Lieutenant Mars again, I thought. What if I had left him on Terraneau? We would not have been able to reach the barges had he and his men not repaired this spy ship. We would not have been able to escape with the barges if his men had not hacked into the Mars broadcast station. And now he had some new surprise. I wondered if it would be as good.

We passed a couple of sailors as we went down the stairs to the second deck. They saluted Holman, and he addressed them by name. He’d handpicked the crew for this mission, choosing loyal men who would think straight in battle …men who weren’t afraid to take unauthorized leave for a good cause.

“You came to save lives,” Holman said, still sounding casual and friendly. Judging by his tone, you might have thought he’d invited me for beers after a round of golf. “I’m here to end some.”

“When did you take up with Scott Mars?” I asked.

“When you made me captain of this ship.”

Most of the lights were still out on the second deck, but Mars’s engineers had restored the heat and air. Maybe it was good that the lights were out; that way, I did not have to see the patches in the walls.

Rather than rewiring the old lights, the engineers had placed temporary domes along the walls at twenty-foot increments. The domes glowed softly, producing enough light for us to see the doors along the corridor.

“You know, General, I have to admit, I was surprised when you put Admiral Jolly in charge. He was a joke as an officer.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “He was a mistake.”

“And ‘Curtis the Snake’ is more of a politician than an officer,” said Holman. He was out of line saying this. He was way out of line; but we were flying an unauthorized mission in a stolen ship. I decided I could overlook the impropriety.

“From what I understand, Liotta is considering an early retirement,” I said.

Holman stopped walking, and asked, “No kidding? Early retirement, just like Admiral Jolly? Do you think he’ll be killed by looters as well?” The man was smart. He’d figured out what happened to Jolly. At least, he had his suspicions.

Holman started walking again. “Listen, here’s why you shouldn’t have put Liotta in charge. He’s not going to run into looters. If he thinks he’s due for an early retirement, he’s going to hide someplace safe, where no one can touch him.”

“You don’t have much respect for the man,” I said.

“Not much,” he said. “He’d have been a good senator if he wasn’t a clone.”

“You mean for the Unifieds.”

“Yeah, a good man for Unified Authority politics.”

We entered a cargo hold at the bow of the ship. Like the corridor outside, the room was dark. Most of the light in the hold came from the low glow of dials along a far wall. Three sailors saluted as we entered. Holman returned their salutes, and they went back to work.

The light, by the way, was not the pale white that shone from the domes in the hall. In one part of the room, the light glowed red. In the other, the light glowed blue. This was a cargo hold. It should have sat empty except for crates and supplies. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lumens, I saw equipment built into the walls and deck.

“This is why I volunteered for this mission,” Holman said. “What do you think?”

“You didn’t volunteer. I asked you,” I said.

“Okay, this is why I agreed to come. That’s kind of like volunteering. So what do you think?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” I said.

“It’s a torpedo room.”

“Mars built a torpedo room in a spy ship?” The ship was small and relatively harmless, designed for flying stealth missions and gathering information, not fighting battles.

Having torpedoes made sense on one level, though. With its stealth generator going, the cruiser flew virtually invisible. We’d be able to catch our targets unawares.

“Those skinny things are torpedo tubes?” I asked. “They look more like peashooters.”

Holman called one of the sailors over, and said, “Senior Chief, can you show General Harris the pills.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the sailor said. It’s not hard to read how sailors feel about their commanding officers. This guy not only respected Holman, he also liked him. I could see it in the way he responded. The senior chief petty officer spun around and headed toward the twin chrome-and-iron tubes.

“You’re right about the tubes, they are small,” Holman said, a hint of pride in his voice. “Standard tubes have a thirty-two-inch bore. These tubes have an eight-inch bore.”

“You’re firing quarter-sized torpedoes?” I asked, fighting the urge to laugh.

“Don’t blame me, I didn’t design them,” Holman said.

“This was Mars’s idea?” Maybe he’s lost his touch, I thought.

“He didn’t make the torpedoes; he just installed the tubes. Oh, and he told me where to find the torpedoes.”

Nestled in the nearest tube, as snug as a bullet in the chamber of a gun, sat a three-foot-long torpedo with red lights etched along its shaft. The glow from the torpedo was the lurid color of blood oranges, and the lights