The Clone Empire by Steven L. Kent Page B

realized that anything that set off the nuke would probably toast us as well. Logic only went so far, however, when it came to my phobia of things I could not control. Trying to ignore my nerves, I sat in the copilot’s seat and strapped myself in.
    We crossed back over Norristown, passing over barren streets and thriving neighborhoods. Going up to gather food and weapons, I had flown over this territory dozens of times, but this time was different. This time I did not know when I would return. It was not just a question of survival. Even if everything worked out just right, I might never return.
    Off in the distance, I saw the three towers of the financial district—the boys’ dorm, the girls’ dorm, and the hospital. Only a few minutes had passed since Ava sent me away. She’d still be in that building. Was she thinking of me?
    “So if Warshaw broadcasted into wherever we’re going, what’s to say he stayed there?” Nobles asked. “I mean, maybe he wasn’t any safer there than he was over here. Maybe he got there, patched up another broadcast station, and took his fleet to the next stop.” As he asked this, Nobles took us out of the atmosphere. The sky turned dark and was no longer a sky but field of stars.
    And maybe the Earth Fleet caught up to him on the other side, I thought. It was entirely possible that we were broadcasting from one graveyard to another.
    “If it isn’t the prodigal son come for a visit,” Lieutenant Mars radioed in to us as we slowed to a drift and floated toward the wreckage. “I was beginning to think you changed your mind.”
    Nobles, who had become very serious, ignored Mars’s greeting, and said, “This is Marine 1, do you have a target for us?”
    “You mean Harris’s Tool?” asked one of the engineers.
    “Roger that,” said Nobles.
    “Harris’s Tool,” the engineer persisted. “Harris’s Tool. That is the code name for the battleship. The only way Operation Chastity Belt can succeed is for us all to be on the same page. You need to call it ‘Harris’s Tool,’ or we won’t know what you are talking about.”
    “Come again?” asked Nobles.
    “The names were Spuler’s idea, not mine,” Mars said, sounding somewhat apologetic. Seaman First Class Aaron Spuler was the resident joker of the Corps of Engineers.
    “Fine, where is Harris’s Tool?” Nobles asked.
    “Where do you think?” asked Spuler.
    Several people laughed. I did not, neither did Nobles.
    “COE 1, where precisely is the battleship?” Nobles asked, his voice flat. “COE” was short for Corps of Engineers.
    “Honestly, Spuler, you’re acting like a ten-year-old,” said Mars. Then he said, “Marine 1, I’ll send over the coordinates.”
    The laughter stopped.
    We picked our way through the graveyard. Terraneau, a giant blue, green, and tawny globe, spun in one corner of our vision. Far in a distance, a roiling orange-and-yellow sun glowed. Seen from inside our transport, the dead ships floating around us looked as large as continents, their portholes dark, the exposed areas of their decks even darker. Humanity never conquered space, it just learned to travel in bubbles. All around us, the dead ships hung as reminders of what happens when that bubble breaks.
    It took us twenty minutes to fly through the graveyard, dodging around the ruins of capital ships, sometimes breaking through a fog of litter. We saw no bodies, though tens of thousands of them floated around us. We pushed through bits of armor plating, folds of molten glass, wings from fighters, and more than one curtain of frozen water, all suspended in space. My pilot might have been used to these sights; he always flew in the cockpit where he could see his surroundings. I generally traveled in the kettle, blissfully ignorant of everything around the ship.
    Off in the distance, a derelict battleship sat in a clearing like an island in the night. Three rows of flashing lights ran along the underside of the ship, winking on and off in