Clone Girls

"You fool!"

Those were the words that reverberated inside the headquarters of  the 9th special assault brigade positioned at Vibro city, one of the biggest cities on Brelia 7.

Inside the office of the general in charge of the brigade, Major Felgoron was trembling in fear facing the aura of rage from the woman behind the desk. That woman was Brigadier-General Rika Doesson, a war hero. And she was furious at him.

"While I was away meeting our superiors, you just had to send away our most capable soldier!"

The subject of the discussion was Ticia. Rika was furious that her subordinate, Felgoron, had decided to transfer her to another brigade without consulting with her.

"I told you, didn't I? Report to me anything that is happening around second class Ticia!"

"Y-you did, General." Felgoron timidly answered.

"So do tell me, Major Felgoron, for what reason did you transfer second class Ticia?"

Rika smiled, Felgoron would have been charmed by her, if it weren't for the killing intent emanating from behind her. That or the hideous scar the woman had on the left side of her face.

"Th-that is…" He trembled, how could he tell her that he had done so because he wanted to give the woman a lesson after she flatly refused him? If he were to tell her that, who knows what would become of him…

Felgoron was one of the new officers of the brigade, and everybody knew how he got his post. Needless to say that he wasn't popular at all. And this superior in front of him was one of those who rose through the ranks by their actions, the perfect opposite of him.

"Sh-she asked for it herself! She said she was disappointed in her skills so she decided to go back to the basics by transferring to an escort unit!"  He made up a lie on the spot. However…

"Stop lying! I know that soldier better than you do!"

*Bam*

"Hieeek!"

She hit the table with her fist, making Felgoron shriek.

The general then heaved a sigh and put her left hand on her forehead.

"To top it all off, you just had to transfer her to a unit who betrayed the confederacy and turned to the Ionian Republic… Now the higher ups are suspicious of us."

"I… I have no excuses…"

This happened just by coincidence. She knew that the major, although nothing more than a corrupted pig, would in no right betray the confederacy. He is too stupid to make that move. She thought.

"...Find her."

"Sorry?"

"I said, move your ass and go find that soldier!" Rika roared her orders.

"Y-yes, I’ll mobilize the troops immediately!" Felgoron hurriedly left the office, as if fleeing for his life. This pitiful display only made Rika sigh.

"Really… In just what kind of troubles are we now…"

She opened a folder that was on her desk. It was a folder containing top secret orders that she just received. The orders were to secure the sector of the facility which had become contested between the confederacy and the republic. "It seems that this sector will soon become a warzone… And all of this because of some old ruins…"

Finding Ticia was sort of a pretext to chase Felgoron away. But this whole operation had to be operated in secret anyway, so it was a good excuse too. Besides, her brigade wasn’t the only one involved on this mission.

"For the higher ups to mobilize so many troops… This site must be of utmost importance to them…"

Beside her brigade, one mechanized division, two infantry regiments and one cavalry battalion would be mobilized. It was a considerable force for such a small scale operation.

In the report, she could see how the traitors operated. After eliminating Dr Fleinboug with the excuse of the activation of a trap, they eliminated the rest of the scientist team before securing the location and declaring their defection to the Ionian Republic. Fortunately for the confederacy, one of its covert agents also received the announcement. They received his report 5 days after the defection of the escort company. Thanks to this agent, the confederacy was preparing countermeasures to intervene.

Rika’s chain of thought derived on Ticia. She wasn’t particularly worried about the soldier. She knew her very well after all. She entered service in the same platoon with the young teenager as a junior officer six years ago. Rika was only 18 years old at that time. She wasn’t friends with the woman or anything, rather, she only thought of her as the best asset in her arsenal. Now and even back then, Ticia would make great achievements wherever she would go on the battlefield. Back in the days, she was jealous of her exploits, and was no better than Felgoron, a selfish young lady from a good family who got her place thanks to her family…

But then, something made her change her mindset. She put her left hand on her scar. She remembered the days when her section was sent on a retrieval mission 5 years ago. The mission itself had failed because of a surprise attack, and all of her section had died while she had been wounded pretty badly. Rika only survived because Ticia, who also suffered a wound to the leg, saved her life. During that traumatic experience, a bond had been created between the two of them. Not a bond of friendliness, but rather a mutual understanding that they both needed each other to survive, and they managed to do just that. Just after the incident, Rika had asked Ticia why she put her life on the line to save her when she could have made it back just by herself. To her at the time, this was the most bewildering act, since she was bullying the young Ticia when nobody looked her way. Ticia had responded that it was just her duty. Annoyed by that answer which, to Rika, seemed to simply be humility, she asked why Ticia was still serving in the army if she refused to be promoted. She could still remember what the young 15 year old Ticia responded.

"A medal does not bring any food on the table, so I don’t care about those pieces of scraps that only flatter the ego…" Rika let out a bitter smile as she muttered those words. Ticia had then continued her phrase, in a rare display of her true feelings.  "Also, if i can permit myself, the political games in which the superiors engage are rather troublesome…"  those words made Rika burst out laughing when she first heard them. The orphan girl was right, the political games the higher ups always did would make it tiring to survive if you had no backers.

After that, Rika made sure to stick to Ticia. She herself also worked hard and polished her skills not only on the battlefield but also as an officer.Thanks to that, her achievements piled up until she was promoted to the grade of brigadier-general at the age of 21, only 3 years after her first mission. She then used her influence to build up the 9th special assault brigade from scratch. She handpicked every soldier of this brigade, including Ticia. When orders for an important operation came in, she would personally give orders to the woman, and the two of them would lead commando operations. Not only was it weird for a general to fight on the field, it was also weird for a general to order a simple soldier around directly. But Ticia somehow refused every promotion, saying it was useless. So Rika made a compromise, and gave Ticia the special status of ‘personal  soldier’, who could only receive orders from her when she was present. There were some complaints from her backers at first, but Ticia and her fulfilled every task with an incredible success rate, so the complaints quieted down rapidly. As a side note, Rika raised Ticia’s salary as much as she could. This was a small price to pay if this could assure that Ticia stayed in the brigade. Ticia would have been wealthy by now... If she did not spent everything into her equipment, or, when it was not the case, into alcohool.

But now, she lost her because of one stupid person.

She sighed. She couldn’t do anything about the major right now except scaring the shit out of him. Her backers were the ones who forced her to have Felgoron within the ranks of her brigade.

"This is frustrating…" She sighed again. She had lost Ticia in a stupid manner. "Well, that girl is probably alive somehow." Rika had seen her too many times on the battlefield. She knew that Ticia had a knack to somehow come back alive no matter what situation she would get herself in. This was one of the main reasons why Rika thought so highly of the 20 years old woman. "Let’s not think about it for now." She shook her head to disperse her thoughts, then stood up. "I have to check on the troops."

Even though she ordered Felgoron to find Ticia at the site of the abandoned facility, she would go there herself to lead the operations. She just said that to make him leave, if she had to search for the woman as a side quest, she would do it herself. Right now, she had to brief her staff about the operation.

"Let’s see… Since it is a secretive operation, we won’t have access to fast transport equipment. Spatial and aerial transports are also out of the question… We’ll have to rely on ourselves…" She looked at the map on the wall, it was very rare in these times to have a paper style map, still, Rika personally preferred that.

"... There’s at least three weeks or more…" From her calculus, it would get her brigade one month of undercover transportation to get to sector B7-45, where the abandoned facility was located.

"Well then, time to go on a little trip." She said those words, she used that phrase every time she and Ticia would go on a mission… She moved toward the exit, when she opened the door, her guards saluted her. She told the man on the left.

"Tell the officers to come to the meeting room in 30 minutes, code yellow."

"Yes, general."

***

"So this is the armory…"

Two weeks after becoming the owner of Clone installation 3, Ticia finally set  foot inside the main armory on the second floor. The main reason was because A-4 had told her that there were movements all around the facility. She did not know if it was the escort company or another group. The planet was contested by the Ionian Republic after all, who also controlled multiple bases and cities on the planet. But, in the end, Ticia thought she should prepare herself in case something happened. She told A-4 to add this to the daily reports it gave her. She also asked him if Cl installation 3 was equipped with defenses other than sleeping gas. The AI had presented her with a rather small array of defenses. To complement those sets of defenses, she would have to go out herself. She didn’t mind it. She was used to fighting. Besides, having weapons would reassure her. With those, she could assure her own defense… And defend the twelve small lives that were still inside their pods.

After one week passed at adapting to her new life as the owner of Clone installation 3, a week in which she did not stop asking questions to A-4, she now better understood how the installation was now in such a clean state compared to the dilapidated walls of the entrance’s hallways. Clone installation 3 had a huge variety of drones used to do menial tasks such as cleaning, cooking, and transporting resources. All of them were connected to the central unit which directed them. While she was at it, she wanted to know more about the creation process of clones. Just in case the AI would try to create other clones behind her back.

She learned that the clones were made to grow at an exceedingly faster rate than regular humans. In other words, the clones would not come out of the pods as babies, instead they would already be grown up. This accelerated growth did not mean they would age faster later on. Rather, the aging would slow down to become similar to a regular human once the clone reached the age of 18 years old.

The only problem was that the pods in which the clones were nurtured could only do so until a certain age. It was marked on the report that the twelve clone girls would get out of their pods when they reach the age of eight. The reports also indicated that they would reach this age in two weeks’ time.

"... It’s rather empty…" Ticia comented as she glanced at the empty shelves. When A-4 had told her that the armory had a wide range of weapons, she thought it would be full. But it seems to not be the case.

"Indication: Surplus of needed weapons has been recycled for later use of ressources in other projects."

"Right, I guess that makes sense." Ticia shrugged. "Personally I would rather have more weapons than the bare minimum. You never know what could happen."

A-4’s eyes blinked for a second.

"Owner’s preference has been registered. Redirecting resources into weapon production."

Ticia just nodded. She followed A-4 until the end of the room, where some weapons were neatly ranged.

"Ooooh… What do we have here?" For a moment, A-4 thought there were stars in the eyes of Ticia, and while the AI was busy wondering whether it should launch a health check on its owner, Ticia grabbed one of the weapons. After a while of examining the weapon she excitedly looked at A-4. The AI understood she wanted an explanation.

"Indication: This is a V-12 carbine. It fires laser projectiles and is a polyvalent weapon with a good rate of fire. Its accuracy is however diminished the longer the range is…"

"Laser blaster type huh? That’s a classic." She frowned a bit. She thought the installation would have forgotten weapons from another era. But laser blasters were the most widespread type of weapon used in the entire known galaxy.

"Indication: Laser blasters are the cheapest weapons to mass produce."

"You’re right, I’ve met them on every battlefield, so I’m rather familiar with them." Ticia posed the weapon and looked at two rifles posed one next to the other. "I’m guessing those are laser blaster rifles then?"

"R-31 laser blaster rifle. It is considered in the database as the most standard weapon every clone is equipped with. Although its rate of fire is mediocre, its precision and ease of use compensates the slow firing rate. The other rifle is the R-32 sniper variant which comes with a target locking system."

Ticia just nodded, all the weapons presented to her were good ones. Although she preferred the plasma weapons that the 9th special assault brigade had, she would not complain. A weapon is, in the end, just a weapon. Whatever form it has. She continued to inspect the weapons as A-4 told her a precise report about each weapon’s performances. After testing them at the fire range, she decided that the weapons she should keep ready to use were the R-31, the V-12, and two pistols called TP-100.

There was only one thing that bothered her…

"Hey, A-4, is it possible to get a new uniform?"

The AI quickly responded.

"Note: Creation of a uniform is a simple process. Owner can either choose an already created template or come up with a new design."

"I’ll do that later then. Although civilian clothes are good, I’m too used to wearing a military uniform." She said, since she was not part of the Borkian Confederation anymore, she could also personalize it all she wanted.

As she left the armory while humming lightly, A-4 called out to her.

"Notification: Creation of an armored suit is advised for the safety of the owner."

"Wait." Ticia stopped. "I can create armor too?!"

"Affirmative"

"Then let’s do it! Ah, finally! I can get one of those armor the rich guys always wore in battle!"

She was excited. Because of her origins, the military refused to give her an armored suit, it was a totally stupid reason in her opinion. Even Brigadier-General Rika could not help her get one. She wondered what the woman would say if she learned that Ticia could build one for herself right now.

"Well, that’s not important anymore, let’s go A-4. We need to talk about the design."

Ticia came out of the armory in a happy mood followed by A-4 who simply bipped as an answer.