Rogue Clone: The Clone Betrayal Part 18

There was a moment of silence. When the Jackal leader spoke again, he sounded nervous. "I'm down to eleven cars," he said. The man who had just run a sortie with a dead gunner hanging from his turret sounded sheepish.

"Eleven cars?" We were almost out of cars, but things had come down to the wire. Resolved that I would probably die in that bas.e.m.e.nt, I no longer cared about my safety. We needed to lure the aliens closer to ground zero.

"It's too late to back out now," I said.

"This isn't just about getting your a.s.s out of there?" the Jackal leader asked. He already knew the answer, but he wanted rea.s.surance before he would send men out to die.

"I'm guessing my a.s.s is fried no matter what happens," I said. The alien came down two more steps, pointing the muzzle of its rifle back and forth across the bas.e.m.e.nt as it went.

If the aliens gave off a heat signature, I could have counted their numbers through the floor with the heat-vision lenses in my visor; but the Avatari gave off no heat. If this one was alone, I could cap it. But if it had come with friends . . .

"We're on our way," the Jackal leader said. I heard a car door shut in the background and knew without asking that he had just sent his navigator to man the turret in the back of his Jackal. "I hope you make it out of there, Harris."

I would never hear him speak again.

Standing eight feet tall, the alien had to duck its head before it could reach the bottom of the stairs. When the b.a.s.t.a.r.d lowered its head, I shot it in the back. Hit by a particle beam, a human target would have exploded. This son of a b.i.t.c.h simply quivered and fell.

A second avatar started down the stairs. I hoped there were only two of them; if these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds called for backup, I was specked.

The stairs creaked as the second avatar started down. I found a hiding place behind a table, not far from Fido's bones. I aimed my pistol and waited in the darkness, but the alien stopped halfway down the stairs. Moments pa.s.sed, and then it went back the way it came from.

I tried to contact the Jackal leader, but the connection was gone.

"Hollingsworth, what's happening out there?" I asked.

"The enemy is almost in position, maybe a quarter of a mile off," Hollingsworth said.

I walked to the bottom of the stairs and stepped over the broken alien. It lay facedown, as still and as stiff as a fallen tree.

"How much longer?" I asked Hollingsworth.

"They're almost in place. Any minute now."

"Okay," I said. There was a shift in the shadows along the wall. I paused and looked up the stairs, but the area was clear. With my connection to the Jackal leader down, I had no way to tell the Jackals to break off their attack. Like me, they needed to get to safety before the bombs went off.

The Jackals might not make it to safety. I had lost many of my men. I was about to ride out the explosion at the edge of ground zero. It looked like we might win the battle, but everything had still gone wrong.

"Okay, light the fuse," I told Hollingsworth.

"What about you?" Hollingsworth asked.

"I'm going to make a break for it," I said. I had already started up the stairs. "Tell you what, Sergeant, if you get the men together when we get back to the ship, I'll slip you all into the officers' club for a brew."

"We can buy you a few more minutes if we send in . . ." Hollingsworth began.

"You have your orders, Hollingsworth."

"Yes, sir." I heard neither pity nor regret in his voice, only resignation.

I struggled to come up with some way to radio the Jackals, but they were militia, the interLink did not reach them. Only the Jackal leader had an interLink connection; and without him acting as middleman, communications with the Jackals had gone dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

Knowing that I might only have a minute to get out of the blast zone, I did not stop at the top of the stairs. I stepped through the splintered doorway into the living room. An alien stood in the middle of the floor, its ma.s.sive silhouette forming a dark cameo against the beige curtains, which glowed against the ion light.

The alien had its rifle ready, but not pointed in my direction. Its body little more than an animated statue, the avatar might or might not have been able to hear the world around it. When our scientists dissected the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, they found that their ears and eyes were little more than ornamental grooves.

This alien sensed something. It spun and aimed its rifle in my direction, but I fired first. The sparkling green particle beam hit the side of the alien's head.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d did not fall right away. Even as its head split open, it stood motionless, as if trying to decide whether to collapse or shoot me. Not waiting to see if I had sufficiently broken the alien, I fired again, then sprinted toward the kitchen. I stopped suddenly. Through the shattered gla.s.s of the back door, I saw three more Avatari circling the yard just outside.

Only a few seconds had pa.s.sed since I had ordered Hollingsworth to set off the bombs, but the seconds hung like minutes in my mind. I ran back through the house and crashed through a front window, landing on a tree-lined avenue that ran the length of the neighborhood. The gra.s.s on the lawns had so overgrown that it spilled on to the sidewalks, but the street still looked like something out of a picture book.

I saw three avatars hunting along the street and there might have been more in the brush. At the end of the block, I could see a Jackal stopped beside a tree. At first glance, it looked parked and abandoned; but when I used telescopic lenses, I saw burns on the hood, a blackened windshield, and holes in the doors. From where I crouched, I could not see the turret in the back; but there would surely be a dead gunner hanging out of it.

Hollingsworth's voice came over the interLink on a frequency that every Marine would hear. "The aliens are in place, evacuate the blast zone. I repeat, evacuate the blast zone."

Several responses of "aye" and "copy that" came back over the same frequency.

Only a hundred yards, and three Avatari stood between me and that Jackal. If I crossed those yards without getting shot, and the engine still ran, I thought I might make it out of the blast zone alive.

As I prepared to make my move, the sound of breaking gla.s.s came from the back of the house. I did not look back. I held my particle pistol in my left hand, where it would be all but useless, and readied a rocket launcher in my right.

The first bolt missed my head by inches. I did not wait to see where it had come from. Instinctively, I spun and returned fire, shooting off a valuable rocket. Tossing the empty tube, I pulled another rocket and fired it at the closest alien between me and the Jackal. The rocket struck the alien in the chest, slinging its arms, head, and chest in different directions.

"Last call to evacuate the blast zone," Hollingsworth called out over the interLink. "One minute till detonation. One minute."

I ran in a zigzag pattern, snaking my way across the street, somersaulting over the hood of an old car, and sliding a.s.s first to the ground. Light bolts slammed through the hood, the windshield, and the front tires. The car exploded in an eruption of orange and yellow and black, the force of the explosion slamming me to the ground.

That explosion must have thrown me ten feet, enough to save my life. When I looked back, I saw dozens of bolts shoot through the flames.

A few yards ahead of me, one of the aliens stepped around a hedge. I fired my last rocket, a worthless shot that went wild, hitting nothing.

Switching to my M27, I raced toward the corner. I must have hit that d.a.m.n alien a hundred times before the b.a.s.t.a.r.d finally fell.

As I rounded the corner, I saw broken avatars all along the street, dozens of them, along with the hulls of demolished Jackals. There had been a b.l.o.o.d.y showdown. Some of the Jackals lay on their sides instead of their wheels. One had crashed into a house.

Avatari soldiers moved along the street to my left and to my right. I fired my M27 at them, and they fired bolts at me. If they'd so much as nicked me, I would have died; but I did not have time to worry about light bolts and painful death. I tossed my M27 aside, pumped my legs as hard as I could, and kept my eyes on the door of the Jackal ahead. I focused on the holes in the driver's-side door because they riveted my attention.

The Avatari had fired several bolts into the windshield of the vehicle to bring it down. Some of the armored gla.s.s had melted, and the rest of the smoke-stained gla.s.s was nearly opaque. The door on the driver's side hung limp from a single hinge. Running as fast as I could, I took in details without a.n.a.lyzing them.

A bolt flew past me, spearing the turret in the rear of the Jackal. The wall of the turret fell off, revealing the head and shoulders of the dead gunner inside. His body hung from the back of the big gun.

Avatari milled around the far end of the street, beyond the Jackal, but they had not yet noticed me. Even if I'd had the rockets, I could not have fired at them. The clock was ticking.

The Jackal's engine was still running, I heard its heavy purr. The driver's door tumbled to the ground when I pulled it. Inside, the decapitated body of the driver sat belted in behind the wheel. His head was missing from the jawbone up, an unusual wound. The heat from a bolt must have boiled the fluid inside the dead man's skull, causing it to explode.

There was no time for manners, not with the Avatari on the street and the bombs about to explode. I unbuckled the dead man's harness and shoved him aside. When I slipped the Jackal into gear, the vehicle lurched forward, causing the dead man to roll toward me. I felt something hit against my armor, looked down, and found myself staring into the open tray of the dead man's mouth, his lolling tongue, the curve of teeth and molars, and the bone and muscle hinges that once connected the jawbone to a skull.

I vomited inside my helmet. G.o.d, I was like a kid fresh out of camp. Scared out of my wits, so excited I wanted to scream, sick to my stomach, and choking on the acrid fumes of my bile, I tore off my helmet and wiped my mouth. It felt good to breathe fresh air.

A bolt sheared through the pa.s.senger's side of the cab, pa.s.sing through the empty seat and into the gun nest behind it. Two bolts struck the cab of the Jackal and more flashed across the hood. I could not dodge their fire. All I could do was drive and hope I would have more luck than the dead man beside me.

Leaning forward over the wheel so I could see through the melted windshield, I headed straight down the street, skidding around one corner, then another, picking up speed as I went. I dodged cars and Avatari, smacked into a curb, then pounded through a hedge before reaching the edge of the little row of houses that had survived the war. Ahead of me, the west side of Norristown stretched out like a barren wasteland.

Driving three-quarters blind, I headed west and hoped for the best. Then came the explosion. It sounded as if all of Terraneau had erupted, as if G.o.d had cupped his hands and clapped them around the planet.

A shock wave rolled across the open plain, carrying with it a wall of smoke and dust as tall as a mountain. I did not see it coming. One moment the path ahead of me was clear, the next, a shock wave struck my Jackal from behind, lifting it onto its front wheels, then dropping the rear wheels back to the ground. The road buckled and bowed, but the ground did not cave in.

Trying to land on solid ground, I gunned the engine. The Jackal shot up the side of a tall dune and took to the air over the crest. When I landed, the jolt knocked my dead copilot free from the seat, and he toppled to the floor.

Looking at the hideous remains, I felt no guilt at all. I had come to liberate a planet. In order to accomplish my objective, I had needed civilian a.s.sistance. They had a militia. Yes, this man had died, but we had defeated the Avatari with a couple hundred men and a handful of vehicles.

"You did well, Harris," I told myself. But looking at the dead man beside me, something told me I had not done as well as I had hoped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

I was not the first Marine to vomit in his helmet, and I doubted I would be the last, but I still derided myself for doing it. I would need to turn in the helmet for cleaning before I could wear the d.a.m.n thing again; and even after the cleaning, the ghost of my bile would linger for another month.

Then I remembered my new rank. As the commander of the Scutum-Crux Fleet, I could requisition new equipment anytime I specking well pleased. As I headed back to the armory, I tossed my helmet, pleased with myself for hiding the evidence of my weakness.

I had one of those moments of clarity in which the future looked so bright. We had defeated the Avatari with a tiny army, and now Thomer could set off the nuke, and we would have the planet to ourselves. No one would know about my helmet. The fleet was mine, and Ava was waiting for me back on the ship.

I found my way to the government complex, the great fortress that had once symbolized the strength of the Unified Authority in this part of the galaxy. This complex had been the seat of government in the Scutum-Crux Arm, and it would be again.

I drove down the ramp into the underground garage, convinced of my invincibility. My revelry ended the moment I stepped out of the Jackal.

"You made it out?" O'Doul broke off from a different conversation and turned his attention on me. I saw the ex-Special Forces commando in his swagger. The man was about six-three, and for the first time I realized he was not just some skinny old man, he had muscles made of sc.r.a.p wire.

"You sound surprised," I said, still believing in my own immortality.

"You were in a house surrounded by aliens in the middle of a blast zone." He looked over at the Jackal. "And you fought your way out in that?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I said, "It took some damage."

Other men came to investigate the commotion. Philo Hollingsworth must have sneaked up on me. One moment there was no one beside me; but when I looked to my right a moment later, there Hollingsworth stood.

"You specking son of a b.i.t.c.h a.s.shole!" O'Doul screamed, looking at the Jackal instead of me. "I told you not to go. I specking told you not to go!" Anger and anguish resonated in his voice.

He looked at me and said, "Mu took five Jackals with him. What about the others?" then looked in the cab of the battered Jackal. "Oh, no! No! No! No!"

I came over to ask what he'd seen, but O'Doul rounded on me. His dark eyes looked rabid. He grimaced, and said, "They should have left you."

Glancing over O'Doul's shoulder, I saw that the body of the dead driver still lay on the floor of the vehicle. Only then did I recognize the dead man's b.l.o.o.d.y clothing. It was the Jackal leader.

"Twelve men went to rescue you," O'Doul snarled.

"I didn't know," I whispered.

"You didn't know," O'Doul said, shaking his head. "Doctorow, Mu . . . How many people trusted you and died today?"

"Doctorow? Doctorow is dead?" I asked, remembering that he had gone off with Thomer.

"We lost contact with Thomer's transport," Hollingsworth said.

My legs went weak. I felt dizzy, almost ready to collapse. Thomer disappeared? First Herrington, now Thomer.

Then I remembered the mission. Without that bomb, we would not be able to destroy the curtain. At most, the battle we had just fought would buy us three days without that bomb. I felt puny and impotent.

For a moment, I thought O'Doul would attack me. We stood there, all of his militiamen forming a ring around us, his eyes boring into mine. His breathing was loud. Instead of attacking me, he did something worse. He turned his back on me. He pulled the body out of the Jackal and carried it the way a man carries a child or a bride. He said, "This man was my brother, Muhammad." And then he walked away.

All the thoughts of victory and invincibility vanished from my head. The words of Nietzsche abandoned me as well. I thought about Ava waiting for me in my quarters; but this time, instead of fantasizing about s.e.x, I thought about holding her. I wondered when and if I would ever see her again.

"When did we lose contact with Thomer?" I asked. The words came slowly. I was a man ready to fall over and looking for balance wherever I could find it. "Give me an update."

The militiamen slowly peeled away from us. I no longer mattered to them.

"Fifteen minutes ago," Hollingsworth said.

"Before or after you set off the bombs?"

"After, right after," Hollingsworth said.

"That might not be a problem," I said, seeing a ray of hope. "It might even be good. It means they're in the mines. They're placing the nuke."

"Wouldn't they have called in first?"

I shook my head. "I told him to wait for the bombs to go off, then to head in." I gave that order back when Doctorow first floated his idea about blowing up the subway tracks.

"We're still down to eighty-one men," Hollingsworth said.

When he first said this, I thought it sounded pretty good because I did not calculate Thomer and the seventy-five Marines he took into the mines in the equation. For one bright moment, I thought Hollingsworth meant that we had eighty-one men plus the seventy-six Marines placing the nuke in the mines. When I did the math, it didn't add up, and I realized he meant that only five of my men had survived our brush with the aliens.

We started the mission a few hours earlier with 250 men, and at that moment I could only confirm that six were alive. Herrington, the old leatherneck son of a b.i.t.c.h had survived more than thirty years of service, and now he was gone.

"How about the militia?" I asked. "How many Jackals made it back home?"