The Clone Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page B

approximately fourteen million miles from Terraneau, far enough out of casual surveillance range that we would not have noticed the disturbance had we not been looking for it. With her stealth generator, the spy ship was invisible to our equipment. Only the anomaly showed on the readouts.
    The spy ship was small and unarmed, the naval equivalent of a hummingbird. She had the ability to slip in behind enemy lines and listen to our communications, track our movements, and watch our production without threat of detection.
    But this ship had been detected. We saw where she broadcasted into our space, and we knew her final destination. It didn’t matter that we lost track of the ship as she traveled the fourteen million miles from the anomaly to the satellite because we knew precisely where she would end her journey.
    She was the mouse in the night, we were the cat. When she materialized beside the satellite, we would pounce. Even if we never saw the ship, our equipment would detect a momentary energy fluctuation when she lowered her shields to retrieve the satellite. She would be vulnerable when she lowered her shields.
    I had no sympathy for the crew of the spy ship; they had come to the Scutum-Crux Arm to watch people die. Instead of offering assistance, the bastards placed a satellite so that scientists could study the death of an entire planet.
    The satellite was smaller than a golf ball and armed with a camera so powerful that it could pick out a single grain of sand in an open desert. The satellite’s unblinking eye undoubtedly recorded us as we pulled our shuttle out of the tunnel and launched into space. It must have spotted us setting our trap as well; but the crew of the spy ship would have no access to those data until they retrieved the satellite.
    â€œAnything?” I asked Cutter. Under normal circumstances, I would have used ship-to-ship communications; but the spy ship might have overheard us. Instead, we used the short-range interLink, a network designed for battlefield communications.
    Cutter spoke to a tech officer, then said, “Nothing yet, sir.”
    We kept our communications short in case the Unifieds tried to listen in.
    Freeman and I watched the scene on a small video screen as we waited inside the kettle of a transport. The screen showed a panoramic view of open space. Terraneau spun in a corner of the screen, its oceans still blue but hidden behind a global cloud of smoke and ash. The alien attack had erased the green from the continents. Gone, too, were the ice caps that had once marked the poles at the top and bottom of the planet. Soot from the attack had turned the atmosphere a rusty gray.
    â€œYou’re still on our side, right?” I asked Freeman.
    Ray Freeman, one of the deadliest men who ever lived, said nothing as he watched the screen. The man was huge, seven feet tall. He was wide and thick and covered with muscle. He was also the last of his kind. In a galaxy that had outlawed ethnicities a century ago, Ray Freeman was proudly African-American. A lot of men saw him as someone to fear. I admired him.
    Freeman was a human sphinx. He answered questions only when he felt like answering. Generally, he ignored them. He was a mercenary, but money did not determine his loyalty.
    â€œWhy help us?” I asked. “Why not the Unifieds?”
    â€œI’m not taking sides,” said Freeman.
    â€œThe hell you’re not,” I said. “We’re about to attack a Unified Authority boat. If you don’t care who wins, you don’t belong on this ride.”
    I trusted Freeman though he had been vague about his loyalties. Freeman was not the type who started the mission as your friend, then shot you in the back. He made his alliances public and sniped his targets from a mile away. In my experience, Freeman’s loyalty was never in question.
    â€œI don’t care about sides, just saving lives,” Freeman said. “That’s it. It’s not about