The Clone Apocalypse by Steven L. Kent Page A

didn’t meet my gaze; instead, he stared at the koi swimming near his feet. He looked at me, looked away, took another glance at the waterfall, then floated toward the conference table.
    As seniormost officer and acting commander in chief, I should have conducted this summit, but Hauser had called for it. I deferred to him. I said, “Tom, this is your show; maybe you should run it.”
That way,
I thought,
I won’t need to hand over the reins when the MPs remove me from the room.
    “If you don’t mind, I think I will take the conn,” he said.
    MacAvoy surprised me. He said, “Harris, sit your ass over here. I got a question for you.”
    So much for his nervousness. I walked over to the table. As I sat, I noticed he had that “flu fighter” shit in his glass. It was orange and viscous, and I smelled the pepper from a few feet away. The drink didn’t seem to help him, though. The bottom of his nose had turned pink and raw, and he held a napkin which he used every so often to wipe his nose.
    “Do you know what this is about?” I asked MacAvoy, feigning ignorance.
    He said, “You’re more clued in than me.”
    I doubted that, but I didn’t mention it. Once I sat, though, MacAvoy became as silent as a rock. He sat there, didn’t look at me, and pretended to take notes. Let me tell you, that was a joke. Pernell MacAvoy may or may not have known how to read, but he’d never jotted notes.
    Hauser sat at the head of the table. He fiddled with the computer station for a moment, then he spoke. He said, “The Earth Fleet discovered a ship floating in space three days ago. She appeared to be unharmed.
    “When we went to investigate, we discovered she was
Magellan
, one of the old Explorers we sent out from Smithsonian Field.”
    Strait, the officer most out of the loop, said, “So you found an old antique, that’s why you called us here?”
    What you don’t know may or may not be able to hurt you, but it can sure leave you looking like an ass. Strait, for instance, didn’t know that we had inherited the entire two-hundred-ship Explorer fleet when we captured Washington, D.C. He didn’t know we had used those ships to transport Marines to a battle on Mars. Apparently he didn’t know that his branch, the Air Force, maintained Smithsonian Field, the hangar facility in which we kept the Explorer fleet.
    MacAvoy hadn’t been given that information either. Hauser and I hadn’t told anyone that we had begun sending those ships to lost planets. I wondered what, if anything, this ghost ship had to do with Sunny. And then I saw the connection. I must have tipped her off about the operation.
    “What about the crew?” I asked.
    “Dead. Seven clones, five enlisted men, two officers. All hands died by death reflex.”
    “A mass death reflex?” I asked. I knew damn well what could cause that, and I saw Sunny’s fingerprints all over it. I also knew where that Explorer had been. We’d sent her to Terraneau, a former Unified Authority planet located in the Scutum-Crux Arm—the far end of the galaxy. During the weeks before we attacked Earth, as the aliens attacked populated planets throughout the galaxy, we’d divided our Navy in half. One half attacked Earth. The other half transferred refugees to Terraneau, a planet that had already been incinerated and no longer interested the aliens.
    The Unifieds, however, weren’t done with us. As we attacked Earth, they attacked Terraneau. We didn’t know how that battle went. For all we knew, our forces had routed the Unifieds, and we had a thriving empire on the opposite side of the galaxy. Or maybe it had gone the other way. The only ships we’d ever seen from that invasion were thoroughly battered.
    Hauser said, “General Harris and I authorized
Magellan
to travel to Terraneau last week.”
    “Why wasn’t I informed?” asked Strait.
    MacAvoy answered before Hauser. He said, “It’s on a need-to-know basis.”
    “I should have been informed about this,” complained