Sitting in the waiting room, I listened to the bits of humor in silence. What kind of jokes did they tell about clones? And another question—If Thurston hadn’t wowed these people with his strategic skills, what would impress them?
The door to Admiral Klyber’s office slid open, and he entered the doorway. “Corporal Harris,” he said.
As I followed Klyber into his office, I heard an aide whisper, “The admiral’s pet clone.” It took real effort to pretend I had not heard it.
“Your mercenary friend is making quite a name for himself,” Klyber said, as we crossed his office. “Freeman is walking a very fine line. He does a lot of piecework in this arm. According to the local authorities, some of his clients are worse than the hoodlums he brings in.”
Klyber sat down behind his desk. I looked over his shoulder for a moment and stared out the viewport behind him. The Kamehameha had entered an odd phase of its orbit. I could not see Terraneau, just the blanket of space and an occasional frigate.
“Sit down, Corporal,” Klyber said, pointing toward one of the chairs before his desk. As I took my seat, he asked, “What do you think of Rear Admiral Thurston?”
“He knows his way around a combat simulation,” I said.
“I’ve never seen the like,” Klyber agreed. “I hear there is a rumor going around that I let Thurston win. I would never stage a loss, not even to improve fleet morale. I don’t see how my losing could possibly boost morale.”
“No, sir,” I said. I had not heard that rumor, and I doubted that anybody outside SC Command had. Rumors like that only existed among ass-kissing officers vying for a promotion. As far as I could tell, Thurston’s victories had gone a long way toward improving ship morale.
Once the topic shifted to Thurston, Klyber spoke in short bursts. He leaned over his desk as he spoke, then sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair when I answered his questions.
“That was a very unorthodox move, leaving a capital ship unguarded during a fighter attack. Moves like that can cost an entire battle.”
“Did he tell you how he knew where to send the Washington and the Grant, sir?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Klyber, sounding aggravated. “Yes, he did. He said that my flash attack meant that I wanted to put him in a defensive posture. He said my opening attack was either the wasteful move of an amateur strategist or an obvious attempt to herd an enemy out of position. The cocky little prick told one of my aides that he gave me the benefit of the doubt.”
Klyber paused, giving me a moment to respond; but I did not say a word. “Thurston read my attack as a move to spread the battle to three fronts. The bastard was exactly right.”
“He figured that out from your opening attack?” I asked.
“Apparently so,” Klyber said.
“Luck?” I asked.
Klyber smiled, taking my question as welcomed flattery. “I thought it was luck, but he’s taken every captain in the fleet. The captain of the Bolivar managed to last the longest—twenty minutes; but he spent most of the simulation running away.” Thinking of this match brought a wicked grin to Klyber’s narrow face. “I sent a video record of the match to the Joint Chiefs. Che Huang may have something to say to Captain Cory about his tactics.”
“Are you going to act on Thurston’s suggestion about adding new ships to the fleet?” I asked.
“You must be joking,” Klyber snapped. His demeanor changed in a flash. His eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips so hard that they almost disappeared. Sitting with his back as rigid as a board, he said, “You give this man entirely too much credit. He won a simulation, nothing more than a game. That is a far cry from proving yourself in battle.”
Knowing that I had touched a nerve, I nodded and hoped the moment would pass.
“We don’t need new ships,” Klyber continued. “Unless you have been briefed about some new enemy that I don’t know about, the Unified Authority is the only naval power in the galaxy. We are the only ones with anything larger than a frigate.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I thought about the three dreadnoughts that attacked the Chayio, but had the good sense to keep my mouth shut.
Klyber stared angrily at me for another moment. “I would not give that frontier-born mongrel the satisfaction,” he hissed. Having said this, Admiral Klyber relaxed. His shoulders loosened, and he leaned back in his chair.
“People feel the same way about clones,” I said.
A glimmer of Klyber’s earlier humor showed in his smile. “I wouldn’t hold my hopes out for a seat on the Linear Committee,” Klyber said, “but, all in all, I think a clone is more readily welcomed into proper society than a prepubescent from the frontier. After all, clones are raised on Earth and are entirely loyal to the Republic. Can anybody really know where a frontier-born’s loyalties lie?”
“But no clone has ever become an officer,” I said.
“As I have said before, we may be able to change that, you and I.” He turned to look out of the viewport. None of the other ships from the fleet were visible at the moment, so he turned back toward me.
“It’s been forty years since the Unified Authority has seen a full-scale assault, Corporal. That is about to change. I am placing your platoon on point. If you perform well…Let’s just say that I will be able to open new doors for you.”
Klyber did not tell me the details at that time. Polished brass ran through his veins, and I was still a corporal. The details became apparent soon enough, however. Admiral Thurston cut the orders the following day.
We filed into the briefing room and sat nervously. People spoke in whispers that steadily grew louder as we waited, and more and more Marines packed into the room. By the time Captain McKay began speaking, four platoons had squeezed into a holotorium that was barely large enough for one.
McKay strode up to the podium alone. Sitting one row in, I was close enough to see the way his eyes bounced around the gallery. Then the lights went out. The holographic image of a dark planet appeared. The planet spun in a slow and lopsided rotation. No sunlight showed on its rocky surface. It did not appear to be a moon, but I saw no signs of plant life or water.
“Naval Intelligence has traced the location of the Mogat separatists who attacked our platoon on Ezer Kri,” McKay said. His voice was low and commanding and tinged with poorly concealed excitement. “The insurgents have set up on a planet in the uninhabited Templar System called A8Z5. For purposes of this mission, we shall refer to A8Z5 as ‘Hubble.’”
McKay spent the better part of an hour laying out the tactics we would employ to invade Hubble. When he finished, he opened the meeting for questions.
“Excuse me, sir,” a Marine from another platoon asked. “Is that a moon?”
“Hubble is a planet,” McKay said.
“God,” Sergeant Shannon whispered, “what a pit.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I knew the paradise Hubble once was and the hell it had become. One hundred thousand years ago, Hubble, the garden planet of the Templar System, had lakes and forests, mountain pastures and ice-capped peaks. Colorful birds once flew across its skies. During our briefing, they showed us video footage of the very spot on which the battle would occur. It was a paradise.
But Hubble no longer had a sky, per se. The noxious, oily gases that passed for its atmosphere could kill a person as surely as a bullet through the head. A thin film of gas swirled overhead, blurring my view of the stars. No sunlight warmed the planet’s rock and powder surface. No plants grew through the hard crust that covered so much of Hubble’s scaly ground.