Strangers.

A science fiction novel.

By Melissa McCann.

Chapter 1.

The air smelled of ozone and burned flesh even in C-Med where backup systems should keep the air fresh. Air should smell of paint and metal and sometimes bodies close together if you were in the clone barracks. C-med usually had a chemical tang. The smell meant the ship was under attack. He was supposed to defend the ship. He twitched in his restraints.

A doctor in a red smock held a scanner over the scar where the shoulder of the new arm joined to his body. She was short and fine-boned with dark skin. Her long, arched nose was sharp as a weapon.

The couch rocked under his back, and a dull thud compressed the air. That meant weapons striking the ship. Enemies were coming. He tried to rise again.

The doctor said, "He's trying to get up."

Another doctor, a male, said, "Conditioning. Probably drools when it hears the dinner bell, too." He laughed.

There were other humans in the infirmary, interns in red uniforms with grey stripes. He liked the female doctor human better than the other humans. Her face was hard and intent like a clone.

The infirmary bucked. A deep boom resonated through the bulkheads, and the lights dimmed to yellow. The female doctor human grabbed the bed restraints for balance.

The male doctor's eyes opened wide. "That was the clone barracks. C&C can't have got the soldiers out in time."

The interns huddled together.

The male doctor human said, "They're going to board the ship before the fleet gets here. Flush that one and get ready to evac." He pushed the interns out the door. Coming back inside, he palmed the board beside the first medi-couch in the row. The occupant, an XY659R with a damaged leg, twitched and tried to sit up against his restraints. The gel-pad and the clone on it slid into the disposal and disappeared.

That made him nervous. He tried to sit up. The female doctor said, "It's foolish to flush this one. His arm is fully functional."

The other doctor flushed the half-healed clone on the next couch. "Not our decision."

The female doctor human pulled a nutrient tube out of the crook of his elbow. She covered the vein with a dab of gel. The catheter pinched as it came out. He accessed his data crystal, found only instructions for C-med -- obey doctors. Doctors are lieutenants in C-med. Nothing about fighting or what to do when the air smelled bad and doctors started flushing clones.

The female doctor released the restraints that held him against the bed.

He sat up. His movement startled the doctor. She stepped back with her eyebrows raised.

The male doctor said, "You're lucky he doesn't run amuck. All that adrenaline and nothing to do with it."

He didn't like the male doctor human. He looked around for an enemy to fight, accessed his crystal for information. Nothing there to tell him how to identify enemies. Red smocks mean doctors. Doctors are lieutenants in C-med.

The female doctor human said. "Flex your left arm."

The new arm came from an XY972S, very close to his own series, but not identical. The skin was a shade darker, the muscles shaped a little differently. A white scar crossed the back of the hand.

The evacuation klaxon made the female doctor human jump. "Evacuation," she said.

"That's it," the other doctor said. "Get to your life ship a.s.signment."

The female doctor human slipped her scanner under her belt. She did not go to the door.

He swung his feet to the floor and took the female doctor human's arm. Evacuation meant get all humans to life ships. He didn't need his data crystal for that. He had simulations for evacuation.

The other doctor stripped off his red smock. "What are you waiting for, Annia? Evacuate."

The female doctor human said, "Go without me."

"Big bang, it's just a clone."

The female doctor human's face was hard. "You can wait with me if you want."

The male doctor human said, "Just make sure you get to a life ship before it's too late." He backed out the door.

The deck rocked again under his feet, and he adjusted his stance. The female doctor human should go to the life-ships now, but she did not. She left him standing by the med-couch. That was not how evacuation was supposed to be. The human should go to the life ships.

The human shoved a watery-pure crystal in the data 'corder. "Access data file Annia 4424. Download to crystal." She waited. The information field flashed. She said, "Pa.s.sword: century plague." The 'corder rattled.

He didn't know what the female doctor human was doing. She should evacuate. He was supposed to fight or evacuate humans. He went to the door and stepped into the corridor outside C-med. There was smoke in the air and a strong, bitter smell. He felt light-headed.

He wanted to go to the life-ships. Clones could go to life-ships when humans were evacuated. He wanted the human to leave so that he could go. He squatted outside the door of C-med near the deck where the air smelled better and didn't burn his throat. He picked with his fingers at his eyebrow. He didn't know what to do. He needed a lieutenant. Not a doctor who was only a lieutenant in C-med, but a real lieutenant who wore a clip on her ear and could hear orders from Command.

The clip on her ear was silent. That was bad. Bad like the burning metal smell in the corridors. It meant maybe the ship was dead, but worse, it meant she had no orders.

She did not know what to do. Fight? No enemies. She didn't know where enemies were. She didn't know what had happened. She remembered violence ripping through the decks of the ship. She remembered trying to go to the barracks for her soldiers, but an emergency bulkhead had blocked the corridor. She could not get to her soldiers. She remembered pacing back and forth in front of the bulkhead for a while, worrying about her soldiers. Then she had turned around and come this way.

The evacuation klaxon startled her, coming from the speakers around her and from the clip itself. The klaxon meant find all the humans and take them to life ships. No one came out of the doors nearby. This part of the ship was mostly for clones. No humans except in C-med. She was near C-med. She would go to C-med and evacuate humans.

The air was better near C-med. Her eyes did not burn so much, and the raw feeling in her chest was better. She saw the doors to the clone infirmary through the haze. A soldier squatted there beside the door plucking at his close-cropped, olive-blond hair the way the XY97 series did when they were distressed or confused.

He heard her before he saw her through the haze and the yellow lights in the corridor: light, quick footfalls, not the tramp of enemy boots. She trotted up the corridor coughing with the bad air. Her grey uniform was wrinkled, the white stripe stained and scorched.

There were no soldiers behind her. Soldiers would be good to see when the ship was full of smoke and there were enemies coming, but a lieutenant was good enough. He was glad to see her.

"Where are humans?" she demanded.

"Evacuated," he said. That was good. "Not one. Doctor won't leave."

She frowned. "Humans first."

He knew what she meant; it was the clones' job to evacuate humans when the klaxon sounded. "Doctor is a lieutenant in C-med," he answered. He had conflicting orders: humans must evacuate, but his crystal said that he must obey doctors.

The lieutenant said, "Evacuation is primary."

He did not understand how lieutenants knew what orders to give. Soldiers didn't know. Without a lieutenant, they could not decide what to do. Now the lieutenant was here; she could decide. Bad feelings went away.

Annia had waited seven years-hiding, moving her data from one coded bank to another, hiding it among innocuous backup files, becoming adept at manipulating the data banks while she waited for an opportunity to escape. Then the Commonwealth sneak ships broke out of null-s.p.a.ce and fired on the Federation enforcer Guardian on which she served her indenture. Evacuation and the nearly repaired clone had given Annia her excuse to be alone with a data access port for the minutes she needed.

How long had it been since she last felt the jolt and shudder of explosive missiles and disrupter bolts? Several minutes, surely. There would be Commonwealth boarding parties at the locks -- maybe already on the ship, maybe outside her door.

The door behind her opened.

She clutched at the data crystal hidden inside her jumpsuit.

The XX222A in the doorway carried a rifle tucked competently under her arm. A swag of soot-dark hair hung across her cheek. She must have been outside the blast area when the barracks were destroyed, perhaps in Simulation & Conditioning -- close enough to be knocked around by the concussion. Her grey-and-white uniform was streaked and scorched. She dropped the rifle's muzzle toward the floor. "Evacuate humans first," she said.

"I'm almost ready."

"Evacuate now," the female clone said.

She had erased most of the evidence of her data out of the bank. If the remains were found, she would just have to hope she was too far away for the government to find her. Annia slung a portable sequencer by its carry-strap over one shoulder and a field kit over the other. The female clone tossed the rifle into the male's hands and hustled Annia out the door into the corridor.

The evacuation klaxon stopped battering Annia's ears. There was something sinister about the ringing silence. "They're inside the ship," Annia said.

The XX touched the clip at her left ear, and her eyes unfocused briefly. "No data," she said.

If the XX222 wasn't getting orders, the attackers must have disabled Command & Control as well as the clone barracks. If any clones had survived the destruction of the barracks, they would be at a loss for orders.

The male clone, still wearing only hospital trousers, halted at a T-junction, set his back to the wall and glanced around the corner. He recoiled. "Enemy," he said.

The XX said, "How many?"

"Twenty-two. Projectile rifles."

He was an XY972-248B. While the tinkers were slicing away at his series' initiative and decision-making capacity, they had inadvertently exposed an inhuman facility for numbers and patterns.

The female slitted her eyes. "Too many to kill. Save ourselves. Protect humans. Evacuate humans first." Her head twitched.

The clone was trying to process contradictory orders. She couldn't get Annia to the life-ships without fighting, but she couldn't fight without being killed and perhaps getting Annia killed as well. After a few minutes of that kind of conflict she would be completely unresponsive.

Annia had other plans anyway. "I can evacuate on a shuttle. You can save yourself. Shuttles are mid-ship. Enemy may not have come there yet."

The XX shuddered in the grip of indecision. "Humans evacuate on life ships."

"I can't get to a life ship. Enemy have the life ships. I have to evacuate on a shuttle."

The XX ground her teeth and twitched her head, but she adapted. "Shuttle," she said. "Evacuate on a shuttle." The XX222s were a good series. Another series, the XY779 lieutenants, for example, would have completely frozen up.

Without clone soldiers to defend the airlocks, Commonwealth troops had entered the ship unopposed. Annia and her clone escort were forced to detour several times to avoid reconnaissance parties. Each time the tramp of boots on the decking sent them down a side corridor, Annia fought a panicky compulsion to give herself up to the enemy. Annia knew plenty of indentured personnel who had spent time in Commonwealth prison camps. They were decent places from all accounts: bigger than IP quarters on the ship and better food. Rumor said there were underground groups that would help Federation indentured personnel to defect. Each time the temptation gripped her, she clenched her fingers around the data crystal in her pocket until the urge pa.s.sed.

The female clone halted at the doors of a lift capsule. She jerked her head.

Annia set her emergency field kit on the deck and scrubbed a sweat-soaked palm on her jumpsuit. "What are you stopping for?"

The clone tightened her brows. "Enemy on ship; stay away from lifts. Enemy on both sides. Ladders too slow."

They were surrounded. The lift was the only way out of the enemy's reach, but the clone's conditioning told her she shouldn't use the lifts when there were enemies on the ship. Annia snapped, "Use the lift, for the well's sake."

The clone twitched. "Enemy on ship; stay away from lifts."

Annia palmed the lock panel. "They're catching up behind us."

She stepped into the lift and the clones followed her reluctantly. The male clone braced his shoulders against the back of the car and aimed the rifle at the doors. The lift hydraulics heaved and moaned -- a lateral glide between sections and down a level.

The lift stopped with a clank, and the XX pulled Annia to one side.

The doors opened.

A projectile weapon thundered in the corridor.

The XY slammed against the back of the lift and dropped his pulse rifle.

Annia shouted, "Don't fire. I'm unarmed. Indentured personnel." In a battle situation with adrenaline high, you couldn't count on Commonwealth troops to keep their heads. She had to give them a moment to calm down.

Silence for a long moment. Good news as far as it went. A shaky voice said, "Step out with your hands where I can see them."

Only the one, she thought. He sounded young. The Commonwealth fleet accepted volunteers as young as fourteen. She raised her hands and stepped slowly into the open.

He was older than she had thought from his voice, but still young enough to turn white and sick about the mouth at the sight of the XX behind her. Annia said, "Calm down. I got separated from my evacuation group. The clones were taking me to the life ships."

He squeezed the microphone on the collar of his red and gold uniform. "Commander, I've captured a human -- indentured personnel -- and two clones. What do I do?"

Annia couldn't make out the answer, but it didn't seem to rea.s.sure the soldier. She'd have been better off dealing with someone more experienced.

Annia took a few steps toward the boy. "I'm indentured. I don't want to fight you."

The XX followed close behind her and edged to one side of the lift doors. The XY lay against the back of the lift pressing his left shoulder with the opposite palm. Blood ran down his arm and soaked his hand.

The Commonwealth soldier blinked sweat out of his eyes. "Just stand over there."

Annia moved to the side as directed, and the boy turned his projectile rifle toward the XX.

Annia stiffened. "Don't point the gun at her."

He swallowed. "My orders are to put the clones down."

Inside the lift, the XY stirred. The boy ignored the fallen clone, focused on the standing XX, the obvious threat. The clone stood with a curiously serene expression.

Annia had seen that look before. "No," Annia said.