The meeting ended much the way it had begun. Holman got the ball rolling by summing up a bad situation. He finished by thanking his officers for their courage, then reminded them that our struggles would extend long beyond the combat.
“Once we establish our colony on Terraneau, every day will bring new battles. We will need to fight to plant crops, then keep those crops alive. Finding water will be a struggle. So will establishing a new nation.
“Those of us invading Earth will be tasked with governing a hostile planet. You will guard the planet until the aliens attack, then, if you survive, you will face the same day-to-day challenges that we will face on Terraneau.
“We are going to divide our forces, and neither side will ever know if the other side survived. Earth will be removed from our broadcast grid. The only way we will know if the invasion of Earth succeeded is if it fails, and the Unified Authority attacks us.”
As he closed the meeting, Holman said, “I came here hoping for a few volunteers. Nearly all of you have volunteered. Because of your bravery, I must decide which of you will escort our barges to Terraneau. Those of you I assign to Terraneau will have the easier job.”
He should have known these men would volunteer for the harder duty once he leveled with them. I’d wager that none of them had ever seen an admiral willingly level with his men. With one quick speech, Holman had raised himself from admiral to messiah.
Besides, their neural programming included the drive to volunteer. They would pick the harder job, and they would fight; but that didn’t mean they would like it. I knew, because I didn’t like it. Holman had originally asked me to ride the barges, and I refused. I was going to face the Earth Fleet. If I survived, I would face the aliens. If I survived again, I would colonize a scorched planet. I volunteered for the hard fight. I hated myself for doing it.
Earth was due for a baking, and Holman would not send the barges back to Earth once he’d landed everyone on Terraneau. He couldn’t; without a working broadcast station, the Sol System would become a dead end. No one and nothing he sent to Earth would ever return, including his Fleet and his Marines.
With eight hours to go before I left for Earth, I flew to Hightower—a city left desolate after the first Avatari invasion, now densely populated with refugees from other planets and the clone servicemen who rescued them. Ava was there, somewhere.
In the past, I could always find her. She was a celebrity, a movie star, and always the prettiest woman in town. Men learned where she lived for the same reason that true believers memorize the locations of religious shrines. Before the Avatari had reduced the planet to ashes, Ava-fascination had spread like a virus on Terraneau. Ask any woman in Norristown if she’d ever seen Ava, and she would tell you where Ava lived, her place of employment, and the latest gossip.
I flew down to Providence Kri, believing I would find a similar situation in Hightower. As I left the spaceport, I asked a civilian security guard if he knew where I could find Ava Gardner. An older man with salt-and-pepper hair and sixty pounds of extra gut, the guard grinned at me, said, “In my dreams,” and walked away.
The spaceport was all but abandoned. Military transports flew in and out of the city, but Holman had not yet begun the evacuation. I walked long, empty halls, brightly lit and large enough to accommodate thousands of people at a time. In another few hours, refugees would fill the halls beyond capacity. I’d seen too many evacuations over the last few years. Given a choice between a battlefield or a mass evacuation, I would take the battlefield every time.
When I reached the terminal lobby, I saw that work had already begun to stage the evacuation. Marines in Charlie service uniforms, complete with MP armbands, were lining up guardrails and assembling checkpoints and help stations. They saw my uniform and snapped to attention. A major, a clone well into his fifties, stepped out to meet me.
“General, sir, no one notified us that you were coming,” he said as he saluted.
I returned the salute, and said, “Yes, I’m a bit surprised myself.”
“Are you here to oversee our preparation?”
“No, Major, I’m here looking for Ava Gardner.”
He must have mistaken the comment for sarcasm. He turned pale and stiffened. Sputtering, he said, “Um, I …sir.”
“At ease, Major,” I said. I began to feel annoyed. I hated unearned shows of respect. Having stars on my collar did not make me a better man. Steven Jolly and Curtis Liotta both had stars, and they died buffoons.
“Yes, sir,” he said, though he remained rigid.
Behind him, the other Marines still stood at attention, watching us carefully and not sure what to do.
“This is not an inspection, so just relax,” I said. “Get your men back to work.” Knowing the scene that lay ahead, I gave in to a sympathetic impulse, and said, “And, Major, I am here looking for an old friend.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, but still he stood there, a sputtering old waxwork, an old man whose career should probably have ended many years ago.
“Is there something else?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Did you want a car, sir? I can arrange for a car.”
“Good thought,” I said. “A car would be helpful.” The major’s version of a car would come complete with a driver, hopefully someone who knew his way around town.
“Sir, if you can give me your friend’s name, I’ll run it through the computer,” he added nervously.
“Ava Gardner,” I said. “Her name is Ava Gardner.”
“Like the actress?” he asked.
I smiled, and said, “Like the actress.”
“Yes, sir. Give me a moment, sir, I’ll get you an address and arrange for a vehicle.” He saluted, I saluted, and he trotted off, leaving me in a lobby filled with Marines still standing at attention.
“As you were,” I growled at the men. They went back to work.
The military is filled with ass-wipe officers who try to link themselves to higher brass at every opportunity. If this major was of that persuasion, he would return with some lame excuse why he should escort me. I started to suspect that the doddering old boy would do just that, and I felt my temper rising. When he returned, he saluted, told me the car was waiting outside the terminal, and returned to work with his troops.
“What’s your name?” I called back to him.
“Perry, sir. Major Andrew Perry. Is there a problem?”
“No, Perry. No problem,” I said.
“What year did you attend the Academy?” I knew he had not attended Annapolis, but that was not the point. He was a clone, and not a Liberator. I did not want to kill the old boy, and asking him about orphanages might cause him to figure out he was synthetic. It could trigger a death reflex.
“I didn’t attend the Academy, sir. I grew up in an orphanage and got field-promoted when we started the empire.”
“In an orphanage?” I repeated. “I grew up in UAO 553,” I said. UAO stood for Unified Authority Orphanage. There had been hundreds of orphanages, clone farms churning out young conscripts whose highest aspiration was to become a sergeant.
“Three-O-Nine, sir,” he said; but his focus was not on me; he kept stealing glances at his men. He did not want to gab, he wanted to work.
I saluted, grunted “Carry on,” and walked to the street.
As for me, I did not expect to survive the day. That our ships would destroy the Earth Fleet, I had no doubt. We’d take casualties, but we’d control the solar system. We would come with more fighter carriers than the
