Galactic Empire Wars: Rebellion (The Galactic Empire Wars Book 3) (5 page)

“What do you
mean?” asked Ryan, feeling suddenly suspicious. “The other customers in this
restaurant are being served their food.”

“I mean we
don’t serve her kind!” answered the man gruffly, pointing a finger at Casey.
“We only serve real Humans.”

Ryan felt his
anger begin to stir. There were an uncomfortably large number of regular Humans,
who hadn’t accepted the clones into society even though it was the law. “What
do you mean, her kind?” Ryan asked challengingly, his eyes narrowing sharply.
His hand clenched into a fist as he struggled to control his rising anger.

“Clones!” the
manager replied in a hard and cold voice. “You can eat here, but she’ll have to
leave.”

Ryan let out a
deep breath. Unfortunately, the Human clones were easy to spot. Their skin was
unblemished and had an unusually youthful look. He closed his eyes and shook
his head. This was something he'd not been expecting to encounter on
Centerpoint. There were hundreds if not several thousand clones on the station
every day.

“She has just
as much of a right to eat here as anyone else,” Ryan spoke evenly, staring into
the man’s unrelenting face. “The Federated Assembly has given clones the same
rights and legal protection as every other Human.”

“Not in my
eyes,” the man retorted, turning to gesture toward two burly looking men
standing at the back of the restaurant. The two started walking toward the
table. “You can leave peacefully or I’ll have you thrown out.”

“I don’t think
so,” a male voice from behind them said.

Ryan turned in
surprise, seeing Privates Rios, Parker, and Adams standing behind them. Private
Parker had been the one to speak. “You’re going to serve all of us or when
we’re through, you won’t have much of a restaurant left.”

“We’re not
afraid of the military,” the manager uttered, his eyes flashing anger as his
two men came up to stand behind him.

“Let’s leave,”
Casey said with an odd look on her face. “A meal isn’t worth fighting over.”
She knew this was her fault even though she didn’t fully understand why.

Lauren stepped
protectively over next to Casey. “You’re just as Human as the rest of us,” she
said in a soft voice, her eyes glaring with anger. Lauren stepped closer to the
manager, her body posture extremely threatening. “You’ll take all of our orders
or I’m going to smash your face in and my two friends will beat the hell out of
your two bouncers. If we find anything wrong with our food, we’ll come back and
you won’t like what we’ll do. I can assure you it won’t be pleasant as we’ll
bring more of our friends along with us!”

The manager
looked at Lauren, not sure what to do. His face was flushed and he clearly
recognized he'd lost control of the situation. He'd never been threatened by a
woman like this before. He glanced at Parker and Rios, who were standing directly
behind her with their fists clenched. Rios cracked his knuckles and took a step
closer.

“We’ll take
your order,” the manager spoke, tersely. The manager gestured to the server and
then left, taking his two lackeys with him.

The server
came over and all five of them placed their orders. Lauren ordered several different
items off the menu just to further aggravate the manager. “We’ll take our
orders to go,” she said as the server turned to leave. “I don’t expect to wait
too long!”

The three sat
down at the table. “We saw you come in here and knew there would be trouble,”
Lauren explained as she looked around the restaurant. The other customers
looked away or down at their food not wanting to meet her eyes. “I’ve heard
several complaints about this restaurant from a few of the other clones.”

“When we get
back, I’ll report this establishment to Major Winfrey,” Ryan said still finding
it hard to believe what had just happened. “Establishments like this won’t be
tolerated on Centerpoint.”

“I don’t
know,” Lauren replied with doubt in her eyes. “There’s more of this going on than
you know, Lieutenant. As more clones are admitted to society each year, people
are becoming uneasy. A lot of people have this manager’s feeling, but they keep
it hidden.”

“I think the manager
might receive a fine, but it won’t change his attitude,” Alexander added.

“I didn’t mean
to cause a problem,” stammered Casey, feeling unsure of herself. There were
still so many things about regular Humans she had trouble comprehending at
times.

“I know,” Ryan
responded in a reassuring voice.

He had been so
focused on his career that he hadn’t been that aware of the growing distrust
regular people had for the Human clones. When he got the opportunity, this was
something he wanted to talk to his older brother about. Wade was heavily
involved in the cloning program. He was best friends with Marken, the head
Kivean, who helped run the massive cloning center back on Vesta.

A few minutes later,
they had their food and hastily exited the restaurant. Finding a table, the
five of them sat down and began eating.

“This food is
really good!” Lauren said, surprised. She had about three times more than she
could eat. No matter, she was sure that Rios and Parker would help her finish
it off.

“It is!”
agreed Casey with a grin. She'd never tasted anything like this sweet and sour
chicken. She took another bite, savoring the taste. “This chicken is
delicious.”

Ryan smiled;
he was glad to see Casey enjoying her meal. He allowed himself to relax and
took a deep breath. He didn’t want to think about what a brawl in the
restaurant would have done to his career. This was a situation he hadn’t
handled very well and he knew it. He was still going to speak to Major Winfrey
about what had happened, and he was also going to mention it to Wade next time
he had a chance to speak with his older brother.

Once the five
of them finished their meal, they headed back toward the training dome. In two
more days, they were going to try Charring Mountain once again. Ryan wanted to
spend some time with his platoon discussing strategy and what they'd done wrong
the first time. He was determined to beat that damn mountain on their next
attempt even though he knew the odds were stacked heavily against him.

-

Wade watched
with interest as the Constellation arrowed down toward the surface of Vesta. A
massive airlock slid open, revealing a lighted entrance, which would take them
to the massive spacedock deep inside the asteroid. Around the perimeter of the airlock,
eight small particle beam cannons ensured there was no unauthorized entry. The
helm officer brought the ship smoothly inside the tunnel, and they were soon
traveling along its lighted length toward the spacedock.

“It’s good to
be back on Vesta,” spoke Wade, looking forward to seeing Beth.

He'd been gone
for several weeks consulting with General Mitchell and recently promoted Fleet Admiral
Thomas Kelly about possible action against the Kleese. Kelly had been the
former executive officer of the Constellation but had shown a knack for
strategy and understanding space warfare. It hadn’t taken him long to move up
to commanding officer, then admiral, and now Fleet Admiral with the retirement
of Fleet Admiral Kirby. Wade knew that Kirby had always felt uncomfortable in
his command position. He'd heard that Kirby had gone back to prospecting in his
old prospecting ship the Raven.

“Vesta is our
mainstay,” responded Adamson, turning toward Wade. “Everyone knows what Vesta
did to save the Human race. If not for President Randle, none of us would be
here today. It’s going to be a sad day when he steps down as president.”

Wade nodded
his head in agreement, but it was time for the civilian government to take a more
active role in managing the habitats and even the war. President Randle
couldn’t do that forever, nor would it be wise. However, there'd been talk of
him taking on some type of advisory position to help guide the next president
through all the pitfalls of managing a Human civilization scattered across the
solar system

On the main viewscreen,
another pair of large airlocks slid open and the Constellation entered the
massive spacedock or, as some preferred to call it, a landing bay. The bay had
been enlarged several times over the past few years. It was now eight kilometers
in width, two kilometers in length and a full kilometer from floor to ceiling.
Inside the bay, numerous ships could be seen in their berths, prospecting ships,
cargo ships, passenger liners, and even a few battlecruisers. On the far end of
the bay, three new battlecruisers were nearing completion.

“There’re over
two thousand Kiveans inside Vesta most of the time,” commented Adamson, turning
to look over at Wade. “We’ve come a long way since our rescue mission.” He knew
that many of the Kiveans were technicians or scientists helping in ship
construction or research projects.

Wade nodded;
the rescue mission Adamson was referring to was when they had taken a fleet to
the Kiveans’ home world to rescue what survivors they could after the Kleese
used antimatter weapons on the surface of the planet to annihilate most of the
population. They'd managed to save over seventy-five thousand Kiveans, many of
them scientists, technicians, students, and their families. They were mostly
living in two habitats inside a nearby asteroid where Marken had established
the original Kivean habitat for the six thousand Kiveans that had escaped with
Wade and General Mitchell from the trading station.

“The Kiveans
have been a tremendous help with the cloning program,” Wade commented. “They
also serve as instructors at the Academy.”

“Speaking of
the clones, I heard there was some unrest in Luna City recently,” Adamson spoke
with a trace of concern showing on his face. “We still have a lot of people who
don’t like the cloning program; they feel we should have built up our military
forces with Human volunteers.”

“They simply
weren't enough,” Wade responded with a deep sigh. He was well aware of the
unrest caused by the cloning program. He knew the latest survey showed that
only thirty-two percent of the Human population agreed with producing the
clones. “With only eighteen million survivors to pull personnel from, we
couldn’t have reached the numbers we needed to resist the Kleese. Even so,
we’ve had a tremendous amount of volunteers from the civilian population.”

“When the
Kleese attack us again, the rest of the civilians will see the wisdom of
creating the clones,” responded Adamson, confidently.

Wade nodded; they
all knew it was only a matter of time before the Kleese returned.

“What’s next
on your schedule?”

Wade allowed
himself to smile. “I’m sure you’re curious why the Constellation brought me
back to Vesta instead of a shuttle.”

“The thought
did cross my mind,” admitted Adamson, looking over at Wade.

“Give your
crew some leave time,” Wade suggested with a secretive look in his eyes. “They
may not get another for quite some time.”

Adamson nodded
his eyes widening slightly. “I suspected something of that sort when I heard
you were coming aboard. I don’t suppose you can tell me where we’re going?”

“No; at least
not yet,” Wade answered his eyes meeting those of the commander. “There are
still a few details that need to be ironed out. Once everything’s ready, I’ll
let you know what’s going on.”

Adamson nodded;
he would begin making arrangements for his crew to take leave immediately. From
past experiences with Colonel Nelson, he knew they could be gone from the solar
system for quite some time. At least Vesta, with its large habitats, was the
best place in the system to take leave.

-

Wade exited
the Constellation to find a female marine major waiting impatiently for him.
She walked up to Wade, put her arms possessively around him, and kissed him on
the lips.

“About time
you came home,” Beth said, stepping back after the kiss and smiling. “Your
parents have been asking about both you and Ryan.”

“Ryan’s doing
fine,” responded Wade, taking Beth’s hand. “He just took his platoon up
Charring.”

“Really!” Beth
spoke her eyes widening. “How far did he make it?” Both she and Wade had been
trained by Marken when they had been Kleese conscripts. She recalled how
difficult getting to the top of the mountain had been. It was the same dome
they had trained in, though there'd been a lot of modifications done, including
changes to Charring Mountain.

“All the way
to the top,” Wade said, feeling proud of Ryan’s first attempt.

“He won the
first time?” Beth said her eyes growing wide in disbelief.

“No, he died
at the top,” Wade answered with a laugh. “No one wins the first time.”

Beth nodded.
Charring Mountain was a tough lesson. She had seen marines get frustrated and
never beat the mountain.

“How’s your
mom doing?”

“Better,” Beth
replied with a sigh. “She’s moved into a retirement home where she can be professionally
looked after. It’s a really nice place with lots to do. Mom was hesitant at
first but seems to be settling in.” Then she looked deeply into Wade’s eyes.
“What did General Mitchell want?”

Wade let out a
deep breath. He looked over where the two eight hundred-meter military transports
were berthed. They were the biggest ships in the fleet and General Mitchell had
placed them under his command.

“We have a new
mission,” Wade answered as he and Beth began to walk toward an airlock that
would allow them to exit the bay. “We have several advance scouts which have
reported back and the war between the Kleese and the Strell will soon be over
if it isn’t already.” The fighting was taking place so far away it was
impossible to get real-time information. Everything they had was months behind.

“Are the
Kleese going to win?” asked Beth, growing concerned. It had been hoped that the
two Empires would weaken one another to the point that they wouldn’t be a
serious threat anymore.