The Clone Republic

CHAPTER TWELVE

Captain McKay appointed me to a seven-member color guard, and I spent the next few days holding a Marine Corps flag as Bryce Klyber and Absalom Barry welcomed an endless stream of diplomats and politicians. The Senate sent a legal team to overhaul the Ezer Kri court system, and we lined up to meet them. The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a team of detectives to hunt down any remaining Mogat sympathizers, and we lined up to meet them. Two members of the Linear Committee flew out with an army of reporters, and we lined up to meet them, too.

Every few hours, a group of VIPs arrived, and McKay sent us to hold up our colors. After five days of round-theclock flag holding, I began to sleepwalk through the arrivals. I no longer cared who stepped down the ramp. At least, I thought I stopped caring.

The night we left Ezer Kri, McKay summoned the color guard to his office. I got the message late and was the last to arrive. When I pressed the intercom button by his door, he squawked, “Harris?”

“Sir?”

The door opened. “As I was saying, this is the big one. You have a problem, sailor?”

One of the sailors in the guard looked nervously to the other men for support. “We just received two members from the Linear Committee.”

“Speck me with a hose!” McKay yowled. “Committee members aren’t brass. They can’t send your ass to the brig, boy. They don’t even notice you. Hell, I could show up with my pants off and a flag dangling from my dick, and the only thing those committee members would notice was that the goddamned flagpole looks awfully long. If you so much as fart on this one, you’re specked for life.”

With that he dismissed the others and kept me behind. “Do you have any idea who our guest is this time?” he asked.

“No, sir,” I said.

“Admiral Che Huang from the Joint Chiefs. Are you familiar with him?”

I nodded, feeling a new knot in the pit of my gut.

“I’m going to be straight with you, Harris. I tried to get you pulled from this duty, but Admiral Klyber wants you on it. You had a conversation with Admiral Klyber a few nights ago?” McKay’s nearly clean-shaven scalp gleamed in the bright lights, but his brow formed a shadow over his eyes giving his face a skull-like appearance.

“Huang does not like clones, any clones.”

I had heard that Huang was antisynthetic. “Especially Liberators?” I guessed.

“As far as he knows, you’re extinct.” McKay stood up and put on his hat.

“Thanks for the warning,” I said.

“Don’t mention it, Harris,” McKay said as he started for the door. He turned back. “Klyber likes you. He’s a powerful man, and he knows what he’s doing; but just the same, don’t draw any attention to yourself.”

Klyber, Barry, and Olivera waited by the landing bay for Admiral Huang’s arrival. I noticed nothing unusual about Admiral Klyber or Captain Olivera, but Admiral Barry looked like a man headed for a firing squad. His face was pale, and beads of sweat shone on his forehead and scalp. He mopped that sweat with darting dabs, then crammed his handkerchief back in his blouse. Klyber looked at him and said something that I could not hear.

A red carpet ran the length of the floor, ending at the hatch through which Admiral Huang would arrive. My color guard stood at the other end of the carpet, holding flags representing the Army, the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, the Unified Authority, the Scutum-Crux Arm, and the Central SC Fleet. We stood as still and intent as our human legs would allow us. The officer of the deck did not need to signal us to attention, we were already there.

A light over the hatch turned green, and the door slid open. Nearly one full minute passed before Admiral Che Huang of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stepped into sight.

Huang appeared to be in his midfifties. He stood around six feet tall, with square shoulders and a narrow waist. He had his cap tucked under his left arm. I could see white streaks through Huang’s thinning, brown hair. There was something about his neatly tailored uniform, or the tilt of his head, or the way he narrowed his eyes as he looked around the landing area, that suggested both breeding and contempt.

“Admiral Huang,” Admiral Klyber said as he led Barry and Olivera to the hatch. “I trust you had a pleasant trip.”

Huang stopped and stared down at the group of officers who had come to greet him. A thin smile played across his lips. “Admiral Klyber,” he said in a stiff voice. The two men shook hands. “Have you read my messages?”

“Admiral Barry and I have discussed them at length,” Klyber said. “I think you will be pleased with the plans we have made.”

“Splendid. I wish to get under way as soon as possible,” Huang said as he stepped away from the hatch. He looked around the hangar and his gaze seemed to lock on the color guard.

“We can start straightaway,” Klyber said with an easy air. Beside him, Vice Admiral Barry managed a tight smile, but the stiffness in his shoulders was unmistakable. All of the blood left his face. As the officers turned to leave the bay, Absalom Barry drifted back and walked several paces behind everybody else.

“At ease,” Captain McKay said, after the brass disappeared.

I was surprised to find Sergeant Shannon and Vince Lee talking when I returned to the barracks. They got on together professionally; but on a social basis, they did not have much use for each other.

I had come to realize that Vince, possibly the first real friend I had ever had, was an antisynthetic clone. I never stopped to think about why he befriended me so quickly after we transferred to the Kamehameha. Now that I did think about it, I decided he liked me because I did not look like every other enlisted man, no matter how subtle the difference. Later, however, I suspected that he had a special dislike for Liberators. That was why he had turned quiet around me when Shannon first landed. First he had thought I was natural-born, then, when he saw Shannon, he realized that I was not just a clone, I was a Liberator. The reason Vince and I were friends was because of a grandfather clause. He and I had already struck up a friendship when Shannon arrived. I suppose that having already struck up a friendship with me and not having any natural-borns to turn to, Lee decided I was okay.

For his part, Shannon simply considered Lee an “asshole of the highest order.” Shannon called him a “synth-hating clone” and said that his quirks were bad for morale…pretty idealistic talk from the platoon sergeant who swept into the Kamehameha with all of the tact of a typhoon.

In this I think he was wrong about Lee. I think it was the reverse. For all of his bluster about bootstrapping his way into a commission and going into politics, I think Vince suspected the truth. I think he wanted to convince himself that he was not a clone and adopted an antisynthetic attitude as a shield because he believed it would protect him. As he well knew, confirmation about his clone origins would trigger the death reflex.

“I hear Admiral Huang is on board,” Sergeant Shannon called out to me as I entered his office. “Was that who arrived on your last color detail?”

“In the flesh,” I said.

“Goddamn,” Shannon said. “Did anybody bother to mention what he is doing here?”

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“Lee, you’re going to be in charge of the platoon for the next few days,” Shannon said. “Scrotum-Crotch Command has transferred Corporal Harris and me to a special detail for an unspecified period. Harris, why in God’s name is high command asking for us?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

“Which is it?” Shannon asked. “You don’t know, or you’re not sure?”

“Do you know why Admiral Huang is here?” Lee asked.

“Unless SC Command is pulling one sergeant and one corporal from every platoon, I’m guessing that this has something to do with our being Liberators,” Shannon said.

“You know you’re a Liberator?” Lee asked me in a loud voice that echoed across the office.

“I should have figured it out on my own when he arrived,” I said, nodding toward Shannon. “He’s the first Marine I’ve seen who was my height and shape. Admiral Klyber must have thought I was an idiot for not finding it out on my own.”

“Klyber?” Lee asked.

“He told me I was a Liberator.”

“And you didn’t die when you found out?” Lee asked.

“Holy Jeeeezus, Lee! He’s standing in front of you, isn’t he! What I want to know is why the hell an admiral is wasting time telling a corporal anything.”

“They didn’t build the death reflex into Liberators,” I said.

“Harris,” Lee said, “we need to talk.”

“It’s going to have to wait,” Shannon said. “We’re expected at Fleet Command.” He paused and considered things. “I can’t see anything good coming out of a visit with Admiral Huang,” he said in a hushed voice, almost a whisper.

“I get the feeling that Klyber is looking out for us,” I said.

“That’s how I read it,” Shannon agreed.

“Can Klyber protect you from the Joint Chiefs?” Lee sounded concerned. “I mean, Huang is as high as they go in the military.”

“If the intel I hear about Klyber is true, his strings go a lot higher than military connections,” Shannon said. He turned to me. “Pack up. We’re supposed to report to the Command deck within the hour.”

“This lift doesn’t seem secure, does it?” Sergeant Shannon asked, as we entered the elevator to the SC Command deck. “I used to wonder why there were no guards.” He pointed to narrow rows of vents lining the ceiling and floor. “You know what those are for?”

“Oxygen?” I guessed.

“Noxium gas,” Shannon corrected me. “Last time I was assigned to the Kamehameha a disgruntled swabbie tried to make an unscheduled visit to Command, and I got to clean up afterward. He’d only been dead for a couple of minutes when we got here, but that was long enough. His arms and legs turned to jelly and squished through our fingers when we tried to lift him. We ended up washing him out with a steam hose.”

The door to the lift opened, and I was glad to step out. We entered the large, unfinished lobby, and one of Klyber’s aides led us to the conference room. The curved panels of the entryway slid open, and the aide motioned us in.

Admiral Huang, Vice Admiral Barry, and Admiral Klyber sat equidistant from each other around the round conference table. Huang turned to glance at us as we entered the conference room. He paused, and his quick glance lengthened into an angry stare. “The Senate has outlawed your bastard clones, Admiral Klyber.”

“The Senate outlawed the creation of new Liberators,” Klyber corrected. “Nothing was said about Liberators that already existed. Sergeant Shannon has served with distinction under my command since the Galactic Central War.”

“The other one looks new,” Huang snapped.

“He has distinguished himself in combat,” Klyber said. “He has been a model Marine.”

Huang’s eyes hardened as he focused on me. I could feel the weight of his stare and sensed the heat of his anger. “These are the men you have selected?”

“Sergeant Shannon, perhaps you and Corporal Harris can give us a moment?” Admiral Klyber said.

Shannon led me out of the conference room. We stood just outside the door, waiting for Klyber to summon our return. “That Huang is a prick,” I said after a moment.

“Whatever he is here for, Klyber wants us involved, and Huang wants us out,” Shannon said.

The panels slid open, and the aide who had originally brought us to the room led us back in. “Sergeant, a squad of military police will arrive on deck momentarily. Please see that they escort Vice Admiral Barry to his quarters and detain him there,” Huang said. As he spoke, I saw Absalom Barry gasping for air. His jaw hung slack, his eyes stared vacantly ahead, and he looked as if he might have a heart attack on the spot.

Huang sneered. “I think I may have finally found a good use for your clones, Klyber; they’ll make good jailers.” The room remained utterly silent until four MPs arrived. “Rabid clones and a half ton fleet commander …it’s quite a fleet you’ve got here.”

The MPs—Navy, not Marines—had their orders when they arrived. They surrounded Barry, who slowly rose to his feet and followed them out of the conference room, his egg-shaped head bobbing as he walked.

“That was wasteful,” Klyber said. “Barry may not have …”

“We needlessly lost a frigate and an entire platoon,” Huang interrupted. “The Joint Chiefs have ordered a board of inquiry. Until Barry’s court-martial is complete, I suggest that you steer clear of him, Admiral Klyber.”

“Barry acted properly,” Klyber answered, his voice cold, his emotions still under control.

“The secretaries of the Army and Air Force disagree,” Huang shot back.

Shannon and I followed Barry and the MPs out of the conference room. The panels closed behind us, sealing off the conversation.

“Do you think Huang came all the way from Earth for this?” I asked Shannon, as we waited outside the conference room for the third time that day. “He didn’t come all this way just to arrest Barry?”

“No.” Shannon smiled. “He didn’t come out to Scrotum-Crotch just to arrest Barry. That was just a bonus.”

The aide led us in to the conference room for the third time. This time Captain McKay sat with Klyber, and Hurricane Huang was not to be found.

“Sergeant Shannon, this is not your first tour aboard the Kamehameha?” Klyber asked.

“No, sir,” Shannon answered. “I spent four years on this ship.”

“I see.” With Huang gone, Klyber took on an informal tone. He pointed to two chairs and had us sit down. “My first command was on this ship, more than twenty years ago, and she was already looking old. I thought it was a demotion at the time. I later found out that every secretary of the Navy for the last fifty years served on this ship. All but one—and that one wants to mothball the ship and retire the name.”

With his icy gray eyes and his all-consuming intensity, Admiral Klyber could not hide his disapproval. He smiled, but his eyes still looked tired and angry. “Barring the further arrest of key commanding officers, I think we should discuss your mission.” Klyber looked back to where Gaylan McKay sat. “Are you ready, Captain?”

There was an unmistakable familiarity between McKay and Klyber. They did not act like friends, but I heard the patient tone of a mentor in Klyber’s voice. Captain McKay walked toward the wall with the conference monitors. The room darkened, and the image of a dark green planet appeared on one of the screens. “This is Ronan Minor,” McKay began. “It is a stage three planet.”

“Stage three planets” were seeded planets that were nearly ready for habitation. By the time they reached stage three, they had a detoxified atmosphere, stabilized gravity, and oxygen-producing rain forests. After twenty years at stage three, planets were, according to U.A. scientists, usually considered ready for colonization. Smugglers were not as patient. They often used stage three planets as bases for their operations.

“You may have been wondering why we have been favored by a visit from Admiral Huang,” Klyber interrupted. “Here is your answer.”

The planet disappeared from the screen and was replaced by the image of a man with a neatly trimmed, white beard. “Recognize him, Harris?” McKay asked.

“Crowley,” I said.

“General Amos Crowley,” McKay said. “How about these men?”

The picture switched, and we saw a video of three men holding a friendly conversation in what looked like a private living room. One of the men sat on a plush chair—Crowley. The other two, whom I did not recognize, sat on a sofa. The camera closed in on Crowley, then panned the others. When the camera reached the third man, the image froze, showing a slender man with dark skin and dark eyes.

“This is Warren Atkins.”

“You’ve heard of his famous father,” Klyber said. “Considering recent events on Ezer Kri, we were more than curious when Fleet Intelligence intercepted this video feed. Until now, we had no proof of a link between Atkins and Crowley.”

“How do we know this was shot on Ronan Minor, sir?” Shannon asked.

“Good question,” McKay said. He allowed the video to resume at a slowed speed. As the camera faded back to take in all three men, a window appeared along the right edge of the screen. McKay stopped the feed. He approached the screen and pointed to the window. “At present, the Department of Reclamation has thirty-five seeded planet projects in the Scutum-Crux Arm. Of those, only twelve are at stage three.”

“Admiral Huang came all the way out here to oversee a mission with one-in-twelve odds?” Shannon asked.

“Not likely,” McKay agreed. “Intelligence was able to lift a serial number off that climate generator.”

“Not meaning to show the captain any disrespect, but is there any chance that they meant for us to intercept this file and locate the planet?” Shannon asked.

“You’re asking if this is a trap?” McKay asked. “It may be a trap.”

“Admiral Huang and I have discussed that possibility,” Admiral Klyber said. “Sergeant, I should think that you above all people would recognize the importance of capturing Atkins.”

“Find Atkins, and you find the GC Fleet,” Shannon agreed.

“Something like that,” Klyber said, looking not at us but at the picture of Warren Atkins on the monitor. “The Navy has improved its ship designs since launching the Galactic Central Fleet. Atkins beat a frigate with three dreadnoughts, hardly something to crow about. Had he run into a battleship or a carrier, the outcome would have been different.”

I did not want to say anything, but I was not sure that I agreed. The attack on the Chayio had been smart and well executed. Somebody had analyzed our blockade and found a weakness.

“Are we sending a platoon to Ronan Minor, sir?” Shannon asked.

“Huang isn’t taking any chances on this one,” McKay said. “He brought a team of SEALs.”

Shannon’s lips broke into a sardonic grin. He looked from side to side as if hoping to see if the rest of us had caught the hidden punch line of a bad joke.

“Is something funny, Sergeant?” McKay asked.

“I know what our sergeant is thinking,” Klyber said. “You are correct, Sergeant Shannon, but it cannot be helped.

“For now I suggest that you go get some rest. We’ll be in position around Ronan Minor in five hours. Your transport leaves at 0500.”

“Okay, what did I miss?” I asked, as we rode the elevator down.

Shannon smiled that same sardonic smile. “Huang has SEALs. Why do you think he asked Admiral Klyber for a couple of Marines?”

I thought about this for a moment. “I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head.

“He’s covering his ass,” Shannon said. “If we run into an enemy army, he can say we led them into a trap. If Crowley and Atkins get away, he’ll report that we specked the god-damned mission. And that, Corporal Harris, is why they call out the shit-kicking Marines.”

There was something of the poet in Sergeant Shannon. ***

If Crowley and Atkins were down there, they did not have radar. Radar was a luxury fugitives could not afford. The Navy could detect a radar field from thousands of miles away. Having radar would have warned them we were coming, but it would also have confirmed for us that they were there.

Huang’s orders directed us to land a full day’s hike from Atkins’s camp so that no one would see us coming. We would drop in the morning, cut our way through the jungle, and surprise the enemy at dusk. I liked the plan’s simplicity, but I was nervous about working with SEALs.

Having only been on active duty for one year, I had never seen SEALs in action. All I knew about them was that they were not clones, nor were they, unlike the other officers, the errant sons of Earth-based politicians. SEALs were volunteers. Adventurous young men from around the galaxy applied to join. Only the absolute best were admitted into SEAL training school, and less than half of those who entered the school graduated.

The SEALs were already aboard the AT when Sergeant Shannon and I walked up the ramp into the kettle. This was the first time I had ever gone out with a team composed of all natural-born soldiers, and I was curious to get a look at them. Most of them were on the short side—between five-foot-six and five-foot-ten—with taut builds, clean-shaven heads, and alert eyes. As we boarded, they became quiet and watched us warily.

The SEALs traveled light. We had a twenty-mile hike from the drop site to the target zone. If we got bogged down in the jungle, Huang wanted us to stop for the night rather than travel blind. Shannon and I had brought packs. The only supplies the SEALs carried were what they could wear on their belts.

The rear of the kettle closed as our pilot prepared to take off. Hearing the hiss of the lifts, I placed my helmet on the bench beside me and rested my elbow on it. Shannon, who sat across the floor from me, continued to wear his.

As we rumbled out of the landing bay of the Kamehameha, the SEALs began talking quietly among themselves. They had clearly worked together before and spoke nostalgically about planets they had raided. I could not see into Shannon’s helmet, but I got the feeling he enjoyed listening to them. There had only been one real war in the last hundred years, and Tabor Shannon was the only man on our mission who was old enough to have fought in it.

One of the SEALs pulled a cigar from his vest pocket. As he lit it, I noticed a round insignia brantooed on his forearm. In the quick glimpse that I got, I saw the whirlpool pattern of the Milky Way with each of its arms stained a different color.

The brantoo process involved melting a pattern into the skin, then staining the burn with alcohol-based dyes. I knew plenty of Marines with tattoos. Some of the more rugged veterans around the Kamehameha had brantoos, but they were small, maybe the size of a coin, and single-colored. To make these brantoos, these SEALs would have suffered through the tinting process six or seven times. I wanted to ask the SEAL if he was awake when he got the brantoo, but I already knew the answer.

The SEAL looked at me. “See something interesting?” he said, in a way that was neither aggressive nor friendly.

“I noticed your brantoo,” I said.

With a slight laugh, he rolled back his sleeve and showed me his arm. “We all have one.”

I looked more closely. The insignia showed the Milky Way with red, yellow, blue, green, orange, and black arms. A banner over the galaxy said “NAVY SEALS.” A banner under the galaxy said “THE FINAL SOLUTION.”

Shannon removed his helmet, and said, “Let’s test out your interLink.”

I put my helmet on.

“They’re not so tough,” Shannon said over the interLink. “Don’t let that brantoo shit fool you.”

“It has six tints,” I said.

“Keep focused, Harris.”

“Six,” I said.

“Harris, do you know why Admiral Huang got so angry when he saw us?” Shannon interrupted.

“Years of constipation?” I asked.

“He wanted Marines he could push around…grunts he could intimidate. He thought Klyber would give him a couple of normal jarheads. Instead, he got us.”

“You think so?” I asked.

“Take my word for it, Harris. We’re the scariest friggin’ weapon in the Unified Authority arsenal.”

I glanced at the SEAL who had shown me his brantoo. Nothing bound him to me, not even humanity. He was natural, I was synthetic. It might have been psychosomatic; but ever since my conversation with Klyber, I felt more and more disconnected from everyone around me. Was this untethering the reason the Linear Committee resorted to Plato’s lie?

The SEALs passed small pots of green and black face paint among themselves. Dipping their fingers in the pots, they drew stripes and patterns over their faces until they covered all of their skin.

The walls of the transport shook as we entered the atmosphere. A few minutes later, a light flashed signaling that we had neared the drop zone. As we gathered our gear, Admiral Huang appeared on the overhead monitor. He spoke to the SEALs for a moment, then turned his attention to Shannon and me.

“You have been brought on this mission as a formality. You will do nothing unless so ordered by my men. If you get in the way, I will hold you personally responsible for the failure of this mission.”

“Yes, sir,” Shannon and I intoned, in perfect sync.

Huang turned back to his SEALs. “We need information, not corpses. I want them alive.” With that, Huang saluted, and the signal ended.

Technicians aboard the Kamehameha had launched a surveillance satellite to view Ronan Minor long before our AT launched. They made a significant discovery—one part of the planet was infested with rats. The vermin offered an important confirmation. At that point in the seeded planet cycle, Ronan Minor should only have had plant life. Somebody had landed, and rats had escaped into a world with no predators and plenty of food.

As we left the ship, I noticed how well the SEALs blended into the jungle. The paint on their hands and faces, which looked so ridiculous in the all-metal environment of the armored transport, matched the leaves and shades of the jungle. We had learned about camouflage back at the orphanage, of course, but I had never seen it firsthand. The SEALs filed out in a column, with Shannon and me trailing a few yards behind.

My armor shielded me from the heat. I could see the way the humidity affected the SEALs. Underarm stains began to show through their uniforms within minutes of leaving the kettle. Drops of perspiration rolled down the oil-based paint on their faces.

“Those poor boys look uncomfortable.” Shannon’s voice oozed with mock empathy.

Though the SEALs used a proprietary channel to communicate with their headsets, I located a faint echo of their chatter on the interLink. They did not speak much, and the few crackling words I understood were all business. “I get the feeling that they’re not thinking about the heat,” I said.

When McKay first told us we would have a thirty-mile hike through the jungle, I envisioned one long, hot afternoon. The foliage grew thicker than I had imagined, and the SEALs cut ahead slowly, careful not to make unnecessary noise. Instead of trotting twelve-minute miles, we barely traveled two miles per hour. Since Ronan Minor, a small planet with a fast rotation, had sixteen-hour days, we were going camping, like it or not. We pushed to within four miles of the target zone, then stopped for the night.

When one of the SEALs told us that Shannon and I had drawn guard duty, I wasn’t surprised. With heat vision and night-for-day lenses in our visors, we were the best choice to stand guard, but I could not help feeling snubbed. They were illustrious SEALs, and we were clones. While the rest of the team rested, Shannon and I sat on opposite ends of the camp.

About an hour after I settled into a nook beside a fern-covered tree, Shannon hailed me over the interLink. “See anything, Harris?” he asked, from the opposite end of the camp.

“Rats,” I said. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Using heat vision, I could see the rats’ heat signature through the foliage. They looked like bright red cartoons with even brighter yellow coronas as they scampered back and forth along the ground.

“Do you see anything else?” Shannon asked.

“Negative,” I said. “Am I missing something?”

“Look due west, all the way to the horizon. Keep using your heat vision.”

We were at the top of a low hill, just a swell in the terrain really. The jungle spread in front of me, and I could see above most of the growth. Off in the distance I saw the dark red silhouette of the oxygen generator. Only the tops of its stacks were giving off heat.

“The generator,” I said. “I missed it before.”

“It’s been shut down,” Shannon said. “Stage three seeding—the plant life takes over the oxygen production at this point.”

Thanks to my heat vision, I saw the aura of a rat running in my direction. I could not shoot it, of course. The noise would give us away. If the bastard came any closer, however, I was not above stomping it with my boot.

“Now look north of the generator. See anything?”

I looked but saw nothing. “This isn’t some kind of trick question is it?”

Shannon laughed. “Use your heat vision. Look at the forest about one mile north of the generator.”

“I still…” But I understood what he wanted me to see. Most of the forest looked velvety black through my visor, but there was a perfectly circular patch with a faint purple tinge. You had to look hard to see it, but it was there. “The Mogats?”

“The site’s gone cold,” Shannon said. “My guess is that they’ve been gone for months.”

I stared down at the zone. Little yellow filaments of light dodged in and out. “No people,” I said, “but there are plenty of rats.”

“The happy little bastards have the planet all to themselves,” Shannon said. “Maybe the SEALs will capture one. I would hate to see them go home empty-handed.”

“Do we tell them that the target zone is cold?” I asked.

“Why ruin their night?” Shannon asked.

***

If we found the compound crawling with people, the plan was to radio the Kamehameha for backup. We did not make a contingency plan for finding it overrun by rats.

Night on Ronan Minor lasted nine hours, and the SEALs resumed their march an hour before sunup. Feeling a bit fuzzy-headed, I had a little trouble keeping up with them. Pushing through the unchecked vines and broad-leaved foliage was slow work. The air was thick as steam. Condensation formed outside my visor. I wondered how the SEALs managed to breathe.

The rats were not the only residents of Ronan Minor; the planet had a healthy cockroach population as well. We didn’t run into many of them on the first day, but as we got closer to the Atkins compound, we saw them clinging to tree trunks and flying rather clumsily through the air. Several of them crashed into my helmet and fell to the ground. These were big roaches, maybe three inches long, with copper-colored bodies. I started when one crawled across the front of my visor. Nobody but Shannon noticed, but I had to put up with him laughing at me over the interLink for the next two miles.

We climbed over a rise and found the edge of the target. The entire site lay hidden under layers of camouflage netting.

“Sergeant”—the team leader motioned for Shannon to come—“do you have heat vision?”

“The compound is empty,” Shannon said in a matter-offact voice.

“Son of a— Shit!” the SEAL said.

“You gonna tell him you scanned it last night?” I whispered over the interLink.

“Shut up, Harris,” Shannon hissed.

“Any chance there is somebody hiding inside?” the SEAL asked.

“I doubt it. All of the machinery is turned off. If they had machinery going, I would pick up a heat signature from an engine or a generator.”

By that time the entire team had gathered around Shannon and the SEAL leader. “We’re still going in,” said the SEAL. “Sergeant, you and the corporal wait out here.”

Shannon saluted and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He turned to me, and said, “Let’s just keep out of their way.” We found a shaded spot overlooking the compound and sat and watched as the SEALS crawled face-first, rifles ready, under the edge of the camouflage nets.

I switched to heat vision and watched the SEALs’ orange-and-yellow profiles through the netting. I lost track of them once they entered the buildings.

“Think they’ll find anything?” I asked.

“Like what?” Shannon asked.

I did not have an answer. I continued to scan the compound with my heat-vision lens. Every so often I spied a SEAL dashing between buildings, but those glimpses were rare. “They’re amazing,” I said to myself, forgetting that Sergeant Shannon would hear me.

“Snap out of it, Harris,” Shannon said. “They’re no big deal. The only thing they have done is storm an abandoned compound, and you’re already specking your armor. You watch, they’re going to come up empty-handed, and Huang will blame us.”

The SEALs spent hours searching the compound, giving me hours to consider Shannon’s prediction. Roaches swarmed the plants around me, and I distracted myself by crunching some of them with the heel of my boot. The sun began to set in the distance, and the roaches became notably more aggressive. One marched right up to where Shannon was sitting, then tumbled onto its back when it tried to crawl over the top of his leg. He looked over and crushed it with his fist.

“So who is the dominant species,” I joked, “the rats or the roaches?”

“The goddamned Mogats,” Shannon answered. “They were the only speckers with enough sense to get off this rock.”

Up ahead, I saw movement in the camouflage covering and switched to heat vision in time to see the first of the SEALs rolling out from under the edge of the net. Ten more were nearby.

“Look who’s back,” Shannon said a split second before the explosion. I just had time to take in the irony in his voice, then the very air around us seemed to turn white, activating the polarizing lenses in my visor. The explosion cut through the jungle in a wave. Its concussion knocked me flat on my back, but I quickly climbed back to my feet.

“GODDAMN!” Shannon yelled as he sprinted toward the clearing. I ran after him, rifle at the ready for no particular reason.

“Harris, find the ones who made it out. I’m going under the net to look for survivors.”

There was no net, not where we were standing. Shreds of flaming camouflage netting floated down from the sky for as far as I could see. I saw Shannon running into the heart of the flames, dropping down a waist-high crater.

One of the SEALs lay with his back wrapped around the trunk of a tree at an impossible angle. I threw my helmet off and ran over to him. He was already dead.

Another SEAL lay on his stomach a few feet away. As I ran to him, I saw a streamer of flaming camouflage float over his shoulder. Brushing it away, I turned the man on his back. He was alive, but barely. A shard of metal the size of my hand was buried in his throat. Blood poured out of the wound.

He would die in a moment no matter what I did for him. I wanted to shake him. I wanted to yell, “What happened here? What the hell did you do?”

Shannon was wasting his time looking for survivors. Not even the rats and the roaches would have survived that explosion. The only survivors were the Mogats. “They were the only speckers with enough sense to get off this rock.”