The Clone Redemption

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Captain Takahashi, standing by the viewport and watching the larger of the moons, only knew that the mission had begun because Yamashiro told him. There were no explosions or bursts of laser to signal the beginning of the attack. Still staring out into space, waiting to see what would happen to the moons, he heard his father-in-law’s sharp gasp.

He turned in time to see Yamashiro yelling into the communications console. “Return to the Sakura.” He spoke in English. Yamashiro generally spoke in Japanese when addressing junior officers, but he gave this order in English.

The pilot on the other end of the communication asked, “What about survivors?”

Yamashiro stood partway out of his chair as he shouted, “Return immediately!” He took a breath, and added, “There are no survivors.”

Takahashi wanted to know what had happened, but he knew better than to interrupt the admiral. Still listening for clues, he looked out through the viewport and searched in time to see the smaller of the moons fall apart. First, it blurred into a smudge, as if fog had formed on the viewport. An envelope of fog, or dust, or maybe gas formed around it. Whatever rose off A-361-D/Satellite 2, it was the same color as the moon itself and translucent. It did not spread. It remained tight around the moon and became thicker and thicker, a stifling, suffocating cloud. Focusing on the words “no survivors,” Takahashi wondered if somehow one of the transports had collided with the moon. But Satellite 2 had come undone, and that suggested more than a transport mishap. The core that held the moon together broke and dissolved before his eyes.

Feeling a sense of elation, Takahashi looked at the larger moon, hoping to see similar destruction. Nothing had changed on Satellite 1.

“No! Do not return to the Sakura,” Yamashiro said, countermanding his first orders. Takahashi heard something in Yamashiro’s voice he had never heard before. He heard fear. Clearly struggling to keep from shouting, he growled, “Rendezvous with the other transport but do not return to this ship until you are given further orders.”

Then, obviously speaking to the bridge, he barked the fatal order, “Prepare to broadcast!”

“Admiral, are you leaving us in space?” asked a voice over the console. Takahashi knew the man was a transport pilot.

“We will return for you,” Yamashiro told the transport pilots. “We are broadcasting out of the solar system. We will contact you when …” But he clearly did not know how to finish the sentence.

“Yes, sir.” The voice that came from the console speaker bore the uncertain tone of a terrified child.

Yamashiro turned his attention to the bridge. “Broadcast status?” he barked, waited less than a second for a response, then repeated the question in a more emphatic tone. “What is our broadcast status? We need to broadcast now!”

“Admiral, the generator is not yet charged.”

Yamashiro stared at the screens, glanced toward the viewport, looking right through Takahashi, then back at the screens. “Broadcast us the moment it’s ready!”

“What is our destination, sir?” asked Commander Suzuki, Takahashi’s second-in-command.

“Out of the solar system! Anywhere outside of this solar system!”

One of the transport pilots asked, “Admiral, where do you want us to rendezvous?”

“Get as far from A-361-D as you can …as far from every planet as you can. Get as far as you can from those planets, and keep flying farther away. We’ll find you. When we return, we’ll find you.”

Takahashi stood behind Admiral Yamashiro, staring over his shoulder. He looked into the various screens and saw nothing. All but one of the displays showed nothing but open space.

“Why are we broadcasting out of the solar system?” he asked.

If Yamashiro heard the question, he did not acknowledge it. He sat hunched over the monitors as if searching for secrets in the empty screens.

“Admiral, why are we leaving the solar system?” Takahashi repeated.

Yamashiro still showed no sign of hearing him.

Suzuki’s voice came over the console. “Admiral, the engines are …”

“Take us out of this solar system.” Yamashiro yelled the words.

“What is our destination, sir?”

“Out. Anywhere out of this system!” He sounded desperate. He sounded frantic. Takahashi thought he sounded crazed as well.

“What about the other ships?” asked Suzuki.

His face turning red, Yamashiro hissed the word, “Now!”

Tint shields formed on the viewport, blocking any hint of the one remaining moon. A moment later, the Sakura had broadcasted out of Solar System A-361.

He’s lost his mind, thought Takahashi. Wondering if his father-in-law was still fit for command, he asked, “How will we find the other ships?”

Slowly turning in his chair so that he faced his son-in-law, his dark eyes burning with more intensity than Takahashi had ever seen in them, Yamashiro said, “They have been destroyed.”

The video feeds were clear and mysterious.

The feed of A-361-D/Satellite 1 showed a bird’s-eye view of the deck and the surface of the moon. For a tenth of a second, maybe only a hundredth of a second, light flared across the screen. A small wisp of steam formed and dissipated. Steam and smoke vanish quickly in the absolute zero temperature and vacuum conditions of space.

Slowing the feed to five seconds per frame did not make a difference. Whatever happened, it happened so quickly that the camera on the satellite could not record it. One moment there was open space, then light appeared and vanished, then the steam appeared and dissolved.

Yamashiro played that portion of the video feed three times without saying a word.

“What was that?” asked Takahashi.

“That was the destruction of an infiltration pod,” said Yamashiro. Now that they were out of danger, he seemed drained of energy. He sat slumped in his chair, answering his son-in-law’s questions in a soft tone that could most accurately be described as defeated.

Yamashiro ran the loop again, this time even more slowly. The one-second feed lasted nearly ten minutes.

“That can’t be a pod,” Takahashi said.

Yamashiro switched to a screen that showed a battleship. One moment she lingered peaceably in space. Something happened. Like the S.I.P., the big ship did not explode. She left no debris. It was like a magician’s illusion. For just a moment, the battleship seemed to inflate, then she crumpled, folding in on herself, compressing until nothing remained except a formless wad of space-colored junk leaking tendrils of steam or smoke.

Yamashiro stared at the screen, and, in a soft, broken voice, he said, “The Onoda.”

“That cannot be,” said Takahashi. The words were a reflex. He believed his eyes. He did not place as much trust in the absolute laws of physics as he did in his father-in-law’s word.

“I can show you what happened to the Kyoto and the Yamato . They vanished the same way.”

Takahashi heard himself hyperventilating, but he could not stop. “We need to go back. We need to help them. We need to look for survivors.”

“We need to accomplish our mission,” Yamashiro replied in a hushed voice. “They sent us because we are expendable. We are not part of the Unified Authority, we are the Japanese. Our fleet and our men were the price we paid to return to Earth.”

Takahashi looked at the screen again and rewitnessed the destruction of the Onoda. It was as if the ship had melted.