The Clone Redemption

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Before the destruction of the Onoda, the Kyoto, and the Yamato, Yamashiro considered the Kamikaze farewell an appropriate tribute. On this day, he did not see the two transports off as they left for A-361-B. The time for ceremony had passed.

A few friends came to see the crews as they boarded their ships. The crews entered the launch area and noticed the deck more empty than usual. The only sailors they saw were a couple of mechanics bending over the open engine compartment of a transport. When the pilot looked in their direction, the mechanics turned away.

“We’re flying a mission, right?” one of the technicians asked the pilot of the lead transport.

“Last I heard,” said the pilot.

“What relief. For a moment I thought maybe we had leprosy.”

The open hatch at the rear of the transport reminded the pilot of a mausoleum. He took one last breath before putting on his helmet, held the air in his lungs, then sighed as it escaped through his lips.

He placed his helmet over his head, and the technicians followed his example. They walked up the ramp and into the kettle, no one speaking. An even dozen stealth infiltration pods lay on the deck of the kettle, strapped along the wall, their polished tops reflecting the light from the technicians’ helmets.

“The SEALs call them caskets,” one of the techs told the pilot.

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” said the pilot. He felt hollow inside. He felt scared. This was the part of the mission that worried him most, thinking he might reveal the fear he so wanted to hide. The pilot believed he would have better control once his transport left the Sakura; but at present, he doubted his own courage.

It was not the pilot’s first mission. He’d flown Illych and his team to A-361-F, the fatal mission. He’d observed their Kamikaze farewell and remembered thinking the ceremony was a waste of time as he watched the SEALs board his transport.

“Secure the cargo,” he told the technicians as he climbed the ladder to the cockpit.

The pilot walked the narrow catwalk between the ladder and the cockpit, a man facing the destiny he could no longer escape. He walked slowly, his head down, arms dangling by his sides. In his heart, he hoped that Admiral Yamashiro would call off the mission; but he knew that would not happen. Now that the hatch was sealed, and he had entered his cockpit, the pilot found the resolve that would enable him to carry out his duty.

“Flight Control, this is Transport 1,” he began, and he went through the launch steps as if they were the five stages of death. He contacted the pilot of the second transport to make sure his ship was ready.

Flying at its top speed of thirty million miles per hour, the Sakura ferried the transport to a delivery point approximately three million miles off A-361-B. That would leave the transports with a long, slow flight; but that was how it had to be. If they launched too close to A-361-B, the aliens would surely spot the Sakura.

When he received the message that the ship had arrived, the pilot purged the air out of the kettle and launched.

Calling from the kettle of the transport, one of the technicians asked the pilot, “If the aliens made the air in the Onoda nine thousand degrees, what’s going to stop them from igniting the air in our helmets?”

“Probably it’s not enough air,” said the pilot. “They have ignored our helmets so far.”

“They had better targets last time,” said the technician.

“No one forced you to take this mission,” the pilot pointed out.

It was true. Per Admiral Yamashiro’s orders, none of the crew had been required to accept this mission. Before assigning pilots and technicians, Captain Takahashi asked them if they believed they could carry out their duty. They all said they could.

“Are you kidding? This is my ticket to the Yasukuni Shrine before the SEALs fill it up,” said the technician, sounding almost serious. The Yasukuni Shrine was a Shinto temple in old Japan that served as a designated resting place for the spirits of soldiers and heroes. Tradition had it that the spirits of the Kamikaze went to Yasukuni.

When the Japanese Fleet had begun this mission, only a handful of crew members had heard of Yasukuni. Now every man and woman in the fleet knew about the shrine. Not many sailors claimed to believe the stories, but no one made jokes about the shrine the way they used to.

“This is not a Kamikaze mission,” said the pilot. “Yamashiro would have given a farewell if it were.”

“He should have given us a farewell,” said the technician.

“You should tell him that when we return,” said the pilot.

Both transports crews were made up of lieutenants. Captain Takahashi had decided that this mission was too important for enlisted men and too likely to fail to dump in the lap of a senior officer.

It’s going to be a long mission, thought the pilot. He had six million miles to travel in a transport with a top speed of two hundred thousand miles per hour.