Rogue Clone: The Clone Betrayal Part 21

When I did not respond, she said, "Oh G.o.d, you're not thinking about . . ."

"You'll be safe there," I said.

"With the latter-day vestal virgins?" she asked. "That's not safekeeping, Honey, that's solitary confinement."

"You wouldn't need to stay there long, just until we get the planet sorted out. It can't be any worse than hiding in the shower and talking to yourself."

She started to say something and stopped. She shifted on the pillow until our faces were only three inches apart, then she reached up and stroked my eyebrow with a finger. "How did you get this scar over your eye?"

"Are you trying to change the subject?" I asked.

"No," she said in a childlike, flirtatious way. "How did you get that scar?"

"I got it in a fight," I said.

"But Marines wear helmets. Wouldn't your helmet protect you?"

"It was a fight, not a battle."

"Like in a bar?"

"Not in a bar, in a ring,"

"Oh?" She reached around my back, where four parallel scars ran across my ribs. "How about these scars."

"Same fight," I said.

"These must have hurt," she said.

"They did," I said.

"How many men were you fighting?"

"Just one," I said.

"I hope you hurt him, back."

"I did."

"As bad as he hurt you?"

"He died."

Silence. I made a mental note not to tell Ava about killing people right after making love.

"You've killed a lot of people, haven't you, Harris?" she asked.

I did not want to talk about it. Stealing a page from her playbook, I tried to change the subject. "When you make movies, what's it like doing a love scene?"

"It depends on the actor," Ava said, the flirtatious tones drained from her voice. I had hit a nerve; but, on the bright side, I had successfully changed the subject.

I named a few actors and Ava told me she despised all of them. According to the gossip, she'd had off-screen romances with every last one of them.

I thought about her undressing in love scenes with actors she didn't like. Maybe it was like killing, maybe you just got used to it. Maybe she'd just gotten used to me, too. I did not want to think about that.

As I finally started to fall asleep, a parade of ghosts invaded my thoughts. I saw Herrington, white-haired and good-humored Herrington. I thought about transports falling through the atmosphere. And I thought about ghosts from other wars, too.

I brought in a large breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon the next morning and told Ava my plans while we ate. I would meet with Admiral Thorne in a few hours, and I hoped to tour the ship with Master Chief Warshaw; but first, I had a staff meeting.

After breakfast, I went to the conference room, where I met Thomer and Hollingsworth. We all arrived on time, then we sat and we waited, and waited. The sailors arrived at the meeting thirty minutes late.

"Where is Warshaw?" I asked, as I surveyed the table.

"He couldn't get away," said Senior Chief Petty Officer Lilburn Franks.

"Couldn't get away?" I asked. "This is a staff meeting." Under normal circ.u.mstances, I would have sent an aide to collect Warshaw. Attendance at staff meetings was never optional. "Do you know what he is doing?" I asked Franks.

He shrugged in a casual, offhand way.

I could already feel my blood pressure rising. Part of me wanted to go Machiavellian-to crush the insubordination at the start and make an example of Warshaw. I decided to take the "making friends and influencing people" route instead, against my better judgment.

"I hear you and your boys saw action. What did you come back with, about one-third of your men?" That quip came from Senior Chief Petty Officer Perry Fahey. He stared in my direction, his heavily made-up eyes locked on mine, daring me to react.

Sitting beside me, Thomer took this in but said nothing. I had the feeling he had recently dropped a load of Fallzoud. When the drug wore off, though, I thought Thomer might have a thing or two to say.

"Perhaps you see some humor in battlefield losses, Senior Chief," I said.

"Humor?" he asked.

"Is there something funny about the deaths of 170 Marines?"

"Um, well, no." Fahey looked up and down the table, hoping for support from the other sailors. They all looked away. Senior Chief Franks looked at his computer. The guy next to him straightened his cuffs. Another stared down into his lap.

"I lost a close friend in that action, Senior Chief, Sergeant Lewis Herrington. Do you remember Herrington? He attended our last staff meeting."

"I remember the sergeant."

"He died liberating Terraneau." When I used the term "liberate," it sent a shock through the room. Coming from someone with my background, the word carried an implicit threat. "Is there a joke I am missing here, Senior Chief? If there is, I would sure as speck love to be in on it."

"No, sir," Fahey said.

"Herrington died scouting for the enemy. Is that funny, a.s.shole?"

This was Hollingsworth's first staff meeting. He had come to fill Herrington's seat. Hearing this verbal mugging, Hollingsworth looked nervous.

"No, sir. I am sure Sergeant Herrington was a good man," Fahey said, but he still had a slight smile at the corners of his mouth. He should have been smiling; he had just accomplished his private mission without my suspecting a thing. He had distracted me. Gary Warshaw was now the furthest thing from my mind.

Officers in the Marines do not think like their counterparts in the Navy. The intrigues of Fleet Command were entirely new to me.

Still trying to calm myself down, I introduced the new addition to our council. "This is Master Sergeant Philo Hollingsworth. Sergeant Hollingsworth will take over Herrington's responsibilities."

I got the feeling that a few of the officers knew Hollingsworth. n.o.body congratulated him, however. We all sat mute.

"Let's get started," I said. "With Warshaw gone, that puts you on the hot seat, Senior Chief Fahey. What's your schedule for Terraneau?"

"My staff is overseeing that project," Senior Chief Petty Officer Jim Milton offered. "I landed a team of engineers in Norristown at 0600.

"Their preliminary reports are optimistic. After surveying the damage around Norristown, they say they can restore the power grid by the end of the week."

"For all of Norristown?" I asked, remembering that most of the city was little more than rubble.

"The north, east, and central sectors, where most of the people live."

"How soon can they get the juice going citywide?"

"The prospects look good, sir. The power plants were outside the city, in an area that the aliens never attacked. From what we've seen so far, the underground power lines are still in place, except in one area just west of town. Apparently an underground train system collapsed in that part of town."

Hollingsworth and I exchanged glances. We knew all about that particular disaster.

"What about Fort Sebastian?" I asked.

"Same thing, sir. We'll have it ready for your Marines in the next week."

"Captain Harris, I heard you were going to restrict the use of that base," said Franks, the ranking NCO on the battleship Washington.

"That is correct," I said.

Even before I finished speaking, Franks said, "You can't be serious about that. These men have not had sh.o.r.e leave for four years."

"The locals are nervous about having us around. I don't want to do anything to upset them."

"It sounds to me like somebody else is calling the shots around here," sneered Fahey.

"Colonel Doctorow said . . ." I started.

"He's got you licking his boots does he?" With this statement, Fahey graduated from contempt to outright insubordination. Once again believing he had the other NCOs watching his back, he became downright fearless.

"We need Doctorow's cooperation," I said, hating myself for trying to justify my decision.

Fahey looked up one side of the table, then the other, and said, "Doctorow is no big deal. Show him who's in charge. Haul his a.s.s up to the Washington, and we'll straighten him out. We're calling the shots in this corner of the galaxy.

"I mean, speck, according to his records, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is absent without leave. If he's a specking criminal, throw him in the brig."

In the moment of silence that followed, Fahey made a show of rolling his eyes. Franks, sitting beside him, chuckled. The two of them exchanged some private joke, speaking so quietly that no one else could hear them.

All of this positioning ran counter to my Liberator genetics and my Marine training. I wanted to kick the chair out from under Fahey's a.s.s. If Franks joined in to help him, so much the better. I even felt the beginnings of the combat reflex, testosterone and adrenaline entering my bloodstream at a very unwelcome time.

Fahey went on. "I'll let you in on a secret, Harris. If you plan on running this Arm, you need my crew a h.e.l.l of a lot more than you need Doctorow." He was baiting me. He was trying to get me to threaten him. He leaned back in his chair, batted his heavily made-up eyes at me, and drummed his fingers on the table.

I knew that I could gain nothing by playing his game. So there we sat, n.o.body speaking, a verbal standoff in an undeclared mutiny. The standoff lasted for nearly a minute, no one wanting to be the first one to speak. The first officer to do so would lose face.

I was the one who ended it. "Where do we stand on the blockade?"

"What blockade?" asked Franks.

"I issued orders for a blockade around Terraneau," I said. "I sent those orders to Master Chief Warshaw. Do you know if he received them?"

"He did," Fahey interrupted, offering no more information.

"And do you know if he has drawn up plans for the blockade?"

"Yes."

"Yes? Yes, he drew up plans?"

"Yes, I know if he drew up the plans," answered Fahey, a smug grin forming on his lips.

Taking a deep breath, fighting the urge to rip the man's throat out, I asked, "Okay, so has he drawn up plans, Senior Chief?"

"Nope."

"Do you know why he has not carried out my orders?"

"He was busy, so he pa.s.sed the orders to me." Fahey raised a hand to stop me, the way a senior officer might raise a hand to quiet a subordinate. But I was not a subordinate. I was the senior officer in the meeting. "I have not drawn up the plans. There's no point to establishing a blockade around a planet in an arm that we have all to ourselves.

"We're the only ones here, sir. Haven't you figured that out?"

If Herrington had been here, he might well have pulled his gun and shot Fahey on the spot. Old-school Marines like Herrington had no time for this kind of s.h.i.t. G.o.d I missed Herrington.

This time, however, Fahey had given me all the ammunition I would need. "Okay, Senior Chief, so you have taken it upon yourself to countermand Master Chief Warshaw's orders. Is that correct? Before I have you arrested, would you like to explain why you have ignored a direct order from Master Chief Warshaw?"

It had not occurred to Fahey that he had unintentionally attached Warshaw to the orders. The self-satisfied grin suddenly melted. "Captain, I guess I do not see why Terraneau would need a protective blockade."

"You don't?" I asked.

Now he was in full retreat. "No, sir. We have no enemies in this Arm, the Broadcast Network is down, and the aliens do not use ships. Having a blockade won't make a bit of difference if they return."

"And you only comply with orders you agree with? Is that correct, Senior Chief?" I asked.

"No, sir," he said.

"Fahey, are you unable to obey orders or simply selective about which orders you follow?" I snapped out each syllable of each word, speaking slowly. "Should I charge you with dereliction of duty or mutiny?"

"Mutiny?"

"Okay, mutiny it is," I said.

"No, no, I was asking you, are you charging me with mutiny?"