The Final Battle

The light from the holo table lit Parker’s face from below and made him appear even more cadaverous than usual. Booly had summoned the noncom to one of the ship’s many conference rooms to review the plan by which their personnel would be moved from the spaceport to the fortified control point that was their particular responsibility.

The map occupied the entire eight-by-four-foot holo surface. Everything from hills to fire hydrants appeared to be three dimensional and threw shadows that were synchronized with the time of day. There was a great deal of surface detail since all of the necessary vid scans had been conducted from low orbit. Sewer lines and fiber-optic cables were represented by nearly invisible pastel lines or were missing altogether.

Parker ran a slender, almost delicate finger along a major arterial, paused at one of the many traffic circles, and speared the next intersection. “There it is, sir. Checkpoint X Ray.”

Booly nodded his agreement. “So, Sergeant, given that company HQ will send hover trucks to carry the troops, how long will it take our personnel to join the rest of the platoon?”

Parker frowned. “Assuming the transport is on time, assuming the drivers know their way around the city, and assuming our borgs are fully operational, about thirty minutes or so. A question, sir?”

Booly grinned. “Yup, that’s what the lieutenant means to say. You and I have special authorization to travel with General Mosby’s party. It departs approximately four hours before our people are scheduled to go and will pass within three city blocks of Checkpoint X Ray.”

Legion general Marianne Mosby settled into one of the gig’s large leather-covered acceleration couches, assumed the “don’t bother me” frown that functioned to keep staffers at arm’s length, and concentrated on the palm top’s color screen. Shuttle trips had long ceased to fascinate her, and think time was hard to find. The trip from Earth had given her plenty of opportunity to study the strategic situation vis-à-vis the Clone Hegemony, but she hadn’t gotten around to the key personalities involved, and they were fascinating. Especially the men, who were identically handsome, and if the intelligence summaries could be believed, as different as flakes of snow.

Mosby scrolled downwards, came to a 3-D color image of the Alpha clone Marcus-Six, and paused. Like his brothers, Marcus-Six was very, very good looking, even with a bar code printed across the middle of his forehead. Unlike his siblings, however, Marcus-Six had some ineffable quality that she found appealing. Sensitivity? Concern? Whatever it was triggered her rather active libido. Which was a waste of time, since like his subjects, Marcus-Six was not allowed to engage in sexual activity. Or, according to some of the rumors she’d heard, not able to.

Which reminded Mosby of her own situation, and the fact that she’d be fifty soon, an age when the prospect of babies becomes less and less likely. Oh sure, there were plenty of options, including sperm donors, in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, auto wombs, and other less savory possibilities. But she wanted the real thing, including hot, steamy sex, a full-term pregnancy, and a traditional delivery. Never mind the fact that she was a general, or that she had turned down numerous offers of marriage, or that she was too blasted old. She wanted a baby, damn it . . . and was in the habit of getting her way.

Mosby did want to know and felt guilty about what she’d done. She mustered a smile and thanked the NCO for passing the message. He blushed and hurried away. Mosby sighed. Men were such simple creatures. Boring and predictable. Then why were they such a problem?

Alpha Clone Marcus-Six stood before a huge window and stared out over the city. It was a study in symmetry. Carefully spaced streets intersected each other at precise right angles; apartment buildings, office towers, and dispersal centers stood shoulder to shoulder like well-disciplined troops; and traffic moved with computer-controlled efficiency.

But like his life, the city only appeared to be orderly. Because just beneath the neat, seemingly orderly surface, a witch’s brew of ideas, thoughts, beliefs, truths, perceptions, lies, theories, ambitions, fears, and hopes churned and bubbled like a cauldron on the boil.

Less than two months had passed since President Anguar’s visit, and the only thing that had changed was the level of danger that Alpha-001 faced. While pretending to stall the confederacy, and seeming to humor their brother, Pietro and Antonio were secretly preparing for war. They had, among other things, seeded agents on Alpha-001, funded a low-key but effective anti-Confederacy propaganda campaign, and sponsored isolated “guerrilla” attacks on Legion outposts. All in the twin names of “freedom” and “autonomy.”

But how much “freedom” and “autonomy” would the Clone Hegemony find under the heel of a Hudathan combat boot? Not very much. Yes, the free breeders were disgusting, but at least they were human, and might eventually see the error of their ways. Which was why Marcus continued to favor an accommodation with the Confederacy. His sibling’s delusions of grandeur aside, the Hegemony was too small to stand against the Hudathan Empire alone, and unlikely to survive once the Confederacy was defeated, an outcome that an alliance might forestall.

But it would be difficult if not impossible to come out in favor of an alliance with the very government that viewed genetic planning as a violation of individual rights and had garrisoned troops on his planet. Especially when a large segment of the population approved of and supported the so-called freedom fighters.

Now, with the departure of the wonderfully incompetent General Sinkler, and the arrival of equally competent General Mosby, a bad situation had suddenly turned worse. Or had it? Assuming that the new officer was as capable as the intelligence reports claimed she was, and assuming that he provided some carefully disguised assistance, it might be possible to slow or even stop the rot his siblings had started. Discrediting his brothers’ freedom fighters would be a good place to start. Yes, a promising thought indeed, which in conjunction with other plans, might turn things around.

Marcus turned his back on the window, checked his watch, and saw that General Mosby was scheduled to pay him a courtesy call in an hour or so. There was a spring in the Alpha clone’s step as he passed the double helix that dominated the center of his office and headed for the door. Opportunity, as the old saying goes, waits for no man.

In order to maintain an appropriately low profile, and to facilitate the dropoff, Booly had talked his way aboard the last unit in the convoy. Like all of its kind, the quad stood twenty-five feet tall, weighed about fifty tons, and was heavily armed. Each of the four-legged cyborgs mounted multiple energy cannons, an extendable gatling gun, missile racks, grenade launchers, and a variety of light machine guns. All of which would make it damned hard for someone to attack the convoy from the rear. The quad had no difficulty matching the lead vehicle’s forty-mile-per-hour pace and ran with surprising grace. Booly, Parker, and a squad of legionnaires rode in the cyborg’s belly compartment. The up-and-down motion took some getting used to but was no worse than riding an armored personnel carrier cross-country. The noncom tapped his wrist term. “We’re just about there, sir.”

The cyborg “heard” the officer electronically and swept the area for any sign of an ambush. His sensors detected lots of everything but nothing unusual. “That’s a roger, Lieutenant . . . welcome to the neighborhood.”

The enormous cyborg paused, lowered its belly to a point only six feet off the street, and opened the starboard-side personnel hatch. Knowing the quad would catch hell if he fell too far behind, the legionnaires hurried to bail out. A host of strange odors filled Boolyʼs supersensitive nostrils and the concrete felt good as it smacked the bottom of his boots.

Servos whined as the hatch closed above them and the cyborg took off. A pair of identical unicycle cops followed along behind. All three accelerated smoothly, closed the gap between themselves and the convoy, and slowed accordingly. Traffic, which had been delayed so the convoy could pass, flooded the intersection.

Booly looked around. Apartment buildings rose on all sides, windows staring down onto the street, walls hemming him in. Everything was spotlessly clean, boringly consistent, and broodingly hostile. The legionnaire sensed a presence behind him, and turned to find six identical children standing there, watching him with open curiosity. They were of African descent and had kinky black hair, dark brown skin, and large, expressive eyes. They all appeared to be seven or eight.

Booly smiled and saw that their expressions remained unchanged. The children were afraid of him. Why? Because he was a stranger? A soldier? No, they had seen legionnaires before, so it was something else. Then it came to him.

Moving slowly, so he wouldn’t scare them away, Booly lowered himself to one knee. The children looked at each other questioningly but stood their ground. The officer smiled reassuringly, reached for the nearest child’s hand, and pulled it towards his face. Large eyes grew even larger as Booly took the little boy’s hand and rubbed it against a furry cheek.

Suddenly there was a giggle, followed by laughter, and a wholesale rush to run grubby hands through short, soft fur. Suddenly Booly was transported back to his childhood when he and the other cubs had followed groups of legionnaires as they made their way between the earthen domes collectively known as “Naa town.” The odor of incense had hung heavy on the air while smoke drifted upwards from dooth-dung fires and barely heard commands issued from inside the fort. The fort that had been constructed to keep the Naa out—until the Hudathans attacked, that is—and the tribes sided with the Legion. The right decision . . . but not one born of mutual respect.

Though never hesitant to make use of Naa labor, or to avail themselves of Naa prostitutes, the troopers had treated the inhabitants of Naa town with undisguised contempt, as did most of their “wild” and therefore “pure” brethren, his mother’s tribe included.

But Windsweet had been more understanding, and explained that the Naa who lived in Naa town did so for a reason, and could not be judged except by those with similar experiences. Which might or might not account for the fact that she occasionally left him with a cousin while she and his father took part in meetings within the fort.

His cousin had been a beautiful little female, all laughter and smiles, who had not only been partner to his first kiss, but had subsequently led him through the rubble that lay heaped at one end of the high walls, and into an old storm drain, which led back through the original structure’s foundation and into the fort, where bars prevented access.

The memory gave Booly an idea. He stood with exaggerated slowness. Parker watched, half-bored, half-annoyed. His assault rifle was slung across his chest and ready for use. The pre-drop briefings had been very specific regarding the danger of lingering too long in one place or of socializing with the locals. “We’d better get a move on, sir.”

The office was large and almost spartan in its white-walled simplicity. A painting, one of thousands produced by the same group of artistically gifted clones, hung over a glass-topped credenza. The Alpha clone sat in a high-backed executive-style chair. His touch-sensitive desk had been tilted upwards to take the glare off the built-in screen and keyboard. A pair of intentionally uncomfortable chairs completed the decor.

Marcus-Six timed his motions so that General Mosby would see that he’d been working rather than waiting for her, yet feel honored by the speed with which he abandoned that activity, and came to meet her. The Alpha clone could be quite charming when he wanted to be.

Mosby had dealt with more than the emperor’s tyranny, including a rather erotic interlude involving the emperor, his clone, and a huge bed. But she saw no reason to mention that. Especially since Marcus-Six had been brain-washed to think that sex, any kind of sex, was a crime against science. Mosby accepted the Alpha clone’s outstretched hand and felt something pass between them. He sensed it too and a look of surprise registered on his face. “The honor is mine, Mr. President. I look forward to working with you.”

Checkpoint X Ray occupied what had been a small park, a park the Hegemony’s city planners had funded with an eye to recreational and military needs since it served a densely populated neighborhood and commanded an important intersection. Which was why the Legion had placed a platoon-sized reaction force there and why the locals resented it.

In addition, the off-worlders had cut down fifty identical oak trees to create a free-fire zone, dug a network of interconnected underground bunkers, and built a five-foot-high berm around the park’s perimeter. Not to mention the eight-foot-tall electrified fence that topped the berm, the reinforced-concrete pillbox-control center that crouched behind the only gate, the floodlights that blazed around the clock, the ominous-looking cyborgs that patrolled the grounds, and the grotesque fly forms that dropped from the sky like dragonflies onto a steel-reinforced lily pad.

None of which mattered to Corporal Sanford, who yawned and wished her semipermanent hangover would go away. Of course that was unlikely, what with the loot spending most of his time at HQ, the top kick dogging it as much as she could, and Sergeant Yang running his jury-rigged still around the clock. Nope, Sanford decided, there was very little chance of sobriety in her future. She grinned and scanned the monitors racked in front of her.

Two people were supposed to be on duty inside the control center, but supposed to didn’t mean much at Checkpoint X Ray, so Sanford was alone. That being the case, she was glad that all seventy-three of the checkpoint’s surveillance cameras were up and running. The shots they provided clicked on and off with monotonous regularity and painted an ever-changing mosaic across the monitors in front of her.

Sanford looked up E Street towards the north . . . down West Twenty-fifth at the never-ending traffic . . . up at a section of uniform roof line . . . and out at a row of sterile facades. Her eyelids grew heavy and started to fall. Sleep tugged, trying to pull her down into its warm embrace, but a proximity alarm jerked her back. Within seconds other alarms had joined the first and the legionnaire was blasted with an annoying chorus of beeps, squeals, and tones. Eager to silence them, she scanned the screens. The children were familiar figures that hopped, skipped, and jumped through the outermost threat zone, and tripped her sensors as they had many times before.

Sanford was just about to activate the PA system, and order the little beggars to leave, when one of them threw something into the air, and another caught it. The object in question looked like a grenade but that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

A sudden rush of adrenaline cleared Sanford’s head and served to heighten her senses. She selected the appropriate camera, ordered it to zoom in, and found that her worst fears had been realized. Some idiot had allowed the children to get their hands on a Legion-issue grenade!

To her credit, Sanford thought of the children’s welfare first, but rather than call for backup as she should have, she left the control center without her TO weapon and rushed to intervene. Which was a violation of general orders and a serious breach of security procedures.

It was a relatively simple matter for Booly and Parker to cross the street, identify themselves, take Sanford “prisoner,” retrieve the disarmed grenade, and pay the children with some local currency. Booly laughed when all six of them flashed identical smiles, giggled, and skipped away.

Sanford, white faced, and clearly shaken up, was marched through the unlocked gate and into the pillbox-control center where she was secured to a chair. It took Booly only seconds to locate the controls for the perimeter security system and turn them off. He knew that doing so would trigger alarm units worn by the platoon commander and by his or her first sergeant. They would be pissed, real pissed, but helpless to do anything about it. Or so he hoped.

Seconds passed, followed by minutes, and no reaction at all. Had the two men been enemy commandos the entire platoon would have been dead by now. Booly shook his head in disgust. He turned to Sanford. There were sweat-stained half-moons under her armpits. “So, where is your CO?”

Sanford devoted the better part of a second to deciding whether to cover for the loot or let his ass swing in the breeze. The second alternative seemed a lot more appealing. “He’s not here, sir.”

Booly and Parker looked at each other. The legionnaire’s replies spoke volumes. Rather than bunk with his troops Fedderman preferred to kiss REMF (rear echelon motherfucker) ass and have steak for dinner. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he had taken the platoon’s borgs along to function as his personal bodyguard. Parker lifted an eyebrow. “And the first sergeant?”

Booly nodded. There was no doubt about it. Discipline was seriously screwed up. He motioned to Parker. “Turn the corporal loose.” He squinted at the name tag sewn over the legionnaire’s left pocket. “Sanford, is it? All right, Sanford, I want you to call company HQ. Tell ’em were gonna run a drill out here, and not to worry if they hear about some sort of disturbance. Got it?”

It took them less than five minutes to weave their way through a series of sandbagged walkways and down into a labyrinth of underground bunkers. Mud squished beneath their combat boots as they walked the length of a hand-dug tunnel and entered a large chamber.

At least twenty-five legionnaires occupied what looked like twenty bunks. Some wore clothes, some didn’t. Layers of thick gray smoke hung in the air along with the almost nauseating odor of sweat, booze, and vomit. A wild assortment of scavenged beams held the spray-plas reinforced ceiling in place. Jury-rigged lamps threw light down onto a floor strewn with dirty uniforms, poorly maintained field gear, mud-caked boots. A beeper beeped and Parker picked up a pair of olive drab pants. The beeper was attached and he turned off. “Don’t know which one is the first sergeant, sir, but here’s his pants.”

The assault rifles made more noise than usual within such an enclosed space. Every single one of the legionnaires was awake within the first two seconds. Some tried to get up, to leave their racks, but retreated as a hail of bullets tore through the jumble of uniforms, gear, and boots that littered the floor. Eventually, after both men had fired full thirty-round magazines, the noise died away. Dust motes drifted through the light and fell towards the floor.

Booly looked around. Some of the faces were black, some were white, but most were brown. Some of the legionnaires met his eyes, daring him to think whatever he chose, but most slid away. He had them by the short hairs and they knew it. The future looked dark. Booly nodded as if in agreement. “That’s right, assholes. Life sucks. Now roll out of those racks. We have work to do.”

Marcus-Six heaved a sigh of relief as the door slid shut on General Sinkler’s rather corpulent posterior. Both he and General Mosby had spent the last two hours maneuvering towards some time alone. He, because he wanted to build a working alliance as quickly as possible, and she, because the Alpha clone was the most fascinating man she had encountered in some time, made all the more interesting by the fact that he was supposed to be celibate.

But Sinkler loved to talk, and worse than that loved to sing, having a pleasant though not spectacular baritone. This gift he generously shared with all and sundry, especially those who reported to him, and had heard his rendition of “Sky Legion” more times than they cared to remember.

So, by the time Sinkler had finished the first part of his repertoire, and the dinner dishes had been cleared, the other two had built the beginnings of a relationship via sidelong glances and repressed laughter.

Having seen Sinkler off, Marcus-Six returned to find that Mosby had left the table and made herself at home in the sitting area of his private quarters. Although the occasion had forced Mosby to wear her dress uniform, it did feature a skirt, which Mosby wore slightly shorter than regulations allowed. It had ridden up to reveal a few inches of thigh. Marcus found the combination of the uniform and creamy-colored flesh to be more than a little intriguing and accepted the general’s invitation to sit next to her. He moved even closer when she pouted and patted the leather at her side. “Don’t be shy, Marcus . . . I won’t bite.”

Though not experienced at the social-sex rituals practiced by free breeders, Marcus did his best to come up with a lighthearted response. “Really? Remind me to fire the head of our intelligence service. She claims you are one of the toughest officers the confederacy has.”

Marcus-Six felt beads of sweat break out across his forehead. He had heard the rumors but assumed they were exaggerated. The fact that free-breeder women really were aggressive came as a shock. “Yes, well not too close, since our society made a conscious decision to control evolution rather than simply experience it.”

“Yes,” Mosby said agreeably, her perfume lapping around his head, “I’m so glad we can discuss that. It seems that sexual reproduction is central to the differences between our governments. Tell me, have you ever had physical sex?”

The question, followed by the warmth of the hand that she placed on his thigh, gave Marcus-Six an erection. Not a new sensation but one he had tried to minimize. He babbled nervously. “Approximately two percent of the population is left intact to protect against the possibility that some unforeseen catastrophe might destroy the sperm and egg repositories.”

Mosby nodded thoughtfully and allowed her hand to drift upwards along the Alpha clone’s leg. His erection was a long, hard bulge under the tight cloth of the pants he wore. She smiled. “Don’t tell me . . . let me guess. Two percent?”

Marcus-Six nodded wordlessly, removed the general’s hand from where it had come to rest, and prayed for strength. He needed this woman to help find and put a stop to the world-destroying insanity his brothers had launched. But at what cost? He looked into her eyes and realized that an already difficult life had just become more complex.