The Clone Redemption

Aware that he might be entering a room filled with radiation, Oliver ran to one of the S.I.P.s. The stealth vehicle did not have gauges or timers on its smooth outer shell, and the dark matte finish revealed no secrets.

“Bridge,” said Oliver. He waited a moment, then asked, “Captain, can you hear me? I’m in the landing bay.”

“What is the situation?” asked Takahashi.

“It looks like a tornado just blew through here,” Oliver said, then added, “maybe an earthquake.”

“What about the pods?” asked Takahashi.

“I can’t tell. It looks bad, the computer stations were smashed.”

“What about the other bays?” asked Takahashi. He started to say something else, then signed off.

Oliver did not check the bodies. He did not have time to care for wounded men who were already marked for death.

There was nothing he could do in this landing bay. Whatever had happened to the pods, Oliver could not diagnose or fix the problem without a working computer station, and the stations in this bay had been smashed.

Having been designed for deep-space travel, the Sakura was not aerodynamic. Unlike airships, she could not glide. If her thrusters faltered, she would drop.

Captain Takahashi felt helpless as he watched Suzuki, his second-in-command, typing maneuvers on the navigation keyboard. Battleships like the Sakura were controlled with computers instead of sticks and throttles. Buttons lit up on the panel, and Suzuki pressed or ignored them. Alarms blared, lights flashed, warning signals went off, and the ship stuttered.

“We can’t hover like this for long. She’s not made for this!” said Suzuki.

Staring into screens and not looking back, Suzuki yelled, “We’re down to one-third of our fuel.” Unlike the ship’s main engines, the Sakura’s thrusters used fuel made from liquid oxygen.

Takahashi listened but did not answer. He knew that fuel meant for course corrections would not keep a ship in the air for long. The continuous booster stream needed to keep the big battleship afloat would drain their already three-year-old fuel supply.

“The engines are too hot. They’re going to melt!” yelled Suzuki. “We can’t do this.”

Takahashi looked through a tactical display to the glarefilled sky outside. “Take us to the shoreline,” he said.

Suzuki did not argue. He said, “Aye, sir,” and began working the computers.

Maybe we should land the ship, Takahashi thought; but he could not give that order. The Sakura was made for deep-space travel, away from gravity. She did not have the wheels or skids needed for landings. When she needed repairs, the Sakura floated into a deep-space dry dock. The only gravity she was designed to withstand was the gravitational force of an orbit.

The second landing bay had been stripped for the colony. Oliver found an empty chamber, vast and black. No lights shone in the void, not even over the emergency exit. With his genetically enhanced eyes, he could see that the floor was bare. No equipment. No bodies.

Other SEALs came to help. Some were injured. One man had broken his right arm, a nub of bone stuck out of his forearm. He carried a flashlight in his left hand. Seeing this, Oliver wanted to send him away; but with his dislocated shoulder, Oliver needed as much help as he could get.

“You, with the flashlight, over here,” Oliver barked at the injured SEAL. The man came to join him. “Follow me.”

Oliver led the pack to the third landing bay. There they found the same kind of damage that the master chief had seen in the first bay. Oliver also saw something else. Hitting the communications button, he said, “Bridge,” waited a moment, then said, “I’m entering the third bay.”

“The pods?” asked Takahashi.

“I’m just entering.”

“We’re running out of time, Master Chief,” said Takahashi.

“Yes, sir,” said Oliver.

Nearly one hundred SEALs entered the bay behind him, some bleeding badly.

“The only easy day was yesterday,” muttered the man with the broken right arm and the flashlight. It was a proverb often repeated by SEALs.

Oliver heard the words and nodded, then told the SEAL to check the computer stations.

The SEAL stumbled off to look at the toppled stations. A moment later he returned, and said, “The computer stations are broken.”

“Did you hear that, sir?” asked Oliver.

“I heard,” said Takahashi.

Despite the calm in Takahashi’s voice, Oliver read his desperation.

“What happened down there?” asked Takahashi.

“They weren’t expecting a rough ride, so they didn’t secure the launch devices. I don’t know how we could have secured them anyway. They’re made to fit in transports.”

Senior Chief Warren entered the bay and pushed his way through to Oliver. He asked, “What can I do?”

“Take some men and get me a launcher and twelve caskets,” Oliver told him.

“What are you doing with caskets?” asked Takahashi.

“That’s SEAL-speak, sir. Caskets are infiltration pods,” Oliver explained. “I was speaking to one of my men.”

“What is the condition of the pods?” asked Takahashi. “Why haven’t they exploded?”

“It’s just a hunch, sir, but I’d say the broadcast disrupted the charging process,” said Oliver.

“That doesn’t make sense,” snapped Takahashi. “Those pods have been through thousands of broadcasts.”

“Not when they were charged, sir,” said Oliver. As he spoke, Oliver surveyed the wreckage. One moment everything looked hopeless, then he saw a transport and the solution occurred to him in a flash.

“I need seven minutes,” Oliver said as he stared at the bulky old transport.

“Seven minutes? We may not last one minute,” shouted Takahashi.

“I need seven minutes, sir,” Oliver repeated.

“It only takes three minutes to charge up the pods, and I’m not sure we can last three minutes.”

“It will take you seven minutes to charge your broadcast engine. Captain, I think you and your men are going to survive this mission,” Oliver said.

“Survive? What are you talking about? How are we going to do that?” asked Takahashi.

As he walked through the shadows to have a closer look at the transport, the Sakura sputtered, bounced up, then dropped so quickly that Oliver felt his feet leave the floor.

“What do you mean we’re almost out of fuel? Use the reserves. There have got to be reserves.” Torn between two conversations, both urgent, Takahashi sounded distracted. He yelled, “Master Chief, we aren’t going to be around in seven minutes.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

After that last shake, Oliver understood what had happened to the men and machines in the landing bays. On the bridge, the furniture was attached to the floor. The ceiling was low. When the ship bounced, sailors who did not brace themselves got bounced. On the big bounces, they hit their heads and shoulders on the ceiling, then landed hard on the floor.

In the docking bays, there was nothing to stop a man from bouncing twenty-five feet in the air. The ceiling was twenty-five feet up and there was nothing on the deck to secure the men to the floor.

The Sakura took another hard knock. Men and machinery flipped in the air. Already