The Clone Elite (Clone 4) by Steven L. Kent

Author:Steven L. Kent
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General, Science Fiction, Adventure, War & Military, Fiction, Cloning
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 2008-10-27T13:00:00+00:00

General Glade met me at the door of his office. He let me in, told me to sit, then started pacing back and forth in front of his desk. “I heard you had a rough time of it,” he said. “Did you get hurt?” He had nothing remotely resembling concern as he asked the question. Like any general, he was a man who routinely sent other men out to die. He could not do his job without caring more about the missions than the men he sent to do them.

I should have appreciated his feeble attempt at courtesy. He was, after all, a natural-born and a general.

“I’m fine, sir,” I said. Hell, he could see that my arm was in a sling. I had a severely blackened eye. How the hell I got a black eye wearing a combat helmet was beyond me. A bald spot and a bandage marked the burn where the gas seeped into the back of the helmet.

“Good. Glad to hear it,” he responded so quickly he nearly cut me off. “I heard your armor failed.”

“My visor,” I said.

“Breeze had his team take a look at it. They say it shorted out when the alien touched you, a complete system overload.”

“Was there anything on the video record?” I asked.

“There is no record, Harris. Breeze says every circuit in your helmet fused. You would have been electrocuted if your armor had a higher ratio of metal to plastic.” Huuhhhhhh. Huhhhhh. He cleared his throat, stopped pacing, stared down at me, and said, “I hate those specking scientists.”

“Sweetwater and Breeze?” I asked.

“Yes, Sweetwater and Breeze.” He snorted. He cleared his throat again. “I don’t know why we bother with them. So far the only thing Dr. Sweetwater has been able to discover about the aliens is that they break instead of die.” He laughed. “I’ll tell you what, Harris, the Unified Authority Marines do not care if their enemies break, die, or give birth to triplets so long as they stop moving when they are shot in the head.”

“Begging the general’s pardon, but I don’t see how we can possibly win this one with bullets and bombs,” I said. “If we’re going to survive, the only way we can do it is if the lab comes up with something.”

General Glade stopped pacing finally and sat behind his desk. “You seem like a man who keeps confidences. I’ll tell you a secret even the Army brass doesn’t know.”

For effect, Glade looked around the empty office to make sure no one was listening. “Sweetwater was the last man off Terraneau before the Angels sleeved it. The dwarf took off just as the ion curtain began to spread.”

“That sounds like a lucky break,” I said.

Glade sat up so quickly and so straight you would have thought someone had stung him with an electric prod. “Lucky break, my ass, Lieutenant. He’s a coward. He turned and ran. Everyone else on the planet is dead . . . everyone but him.”

I wanted to

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