EarthFall

Chap 11. Oldworlders.

Chief ignored him and walked up to the second exhibit. It was another large cave cut into the wall of the Ravine. There were a number of different ferns and tall grasses inside the Cave. Thankfully though it was covered with some kind of glass door, because on the inside swarmed what could only have been hundreds of thousands of Coccinellidae. Small, red, spotted beetles. Thousands upon thousands of them. What did they eat in there?

Chief set the charge against the wall of the glass and turned to carson. "What did they used to call these little ones?"

"I'll answer your question if you answer mine." Carson ventured. Chief's reply was quicker then he expected.

"To my knowledge, there have been a total of 5 manned crews to earth over the past decade or so. None have responded after landing. I believe we are the last expedition, Carson. Command told me they have 'run out of stock' as it were. It's possible that after this, they will begin moving people in Mass. I don't know. Either way, protocol dictates it is Crucial that we finish the mission in order for that to happen.." Chief said.

"...Ladybugs, Sir." Carson said after a moment of silence.

"Hu. They don't seem very ladylike to me. I mean they are almost cute but... not very ladylike. Those Oldworlders and their names..." He shook his head, activated the charge and headed off again.

Was this what the Doc was trying to warn Carson about? He said he'd been unable to clone a Rosacea because they had run out of "stock" on that genus.

"Tal... am I a clone?" Carson asked quietly.

Chief stopped and turned around. He looked as if he had been waiting for Carson to ask this. Then in a surprising, uncharacteristically gentle tone, he confirmed his fears.

"We all are."

Carson's gut fell to the floor. They were just... cannon fodder then. They weren't even people in the eyes of the HUD. His entire life, it had been a lie. He had no real rights. He couldn't even process that right now.

"Who was my original donor?" He finally managed to get out.

"I don't know specifically. An Oldworlder though."

Carson stared at Chief angrily in disbelief. If he walked away in silence again with no further explanation after that little Gem, Carson swore to God he would stun him several times, right then, right there.

Chief Sighed and continued.

"Command saved the DNA of a few athletic Oldworlders. Olympic medal winners, professional athletes, e.t.c. because before we fled to mars, we didn't know how much the decreased gravity would affect humans. We had 2 sets of data to go off of back then. Earth's gravity, and zero gravity. Command didn't know if 30% earth's gravity meant 70% atrophy in humans. If 40% earth's gravity meant 60% atrophy in humans, E.T.C.. They didn't know if it was a sliding scale or not. We got lucky, as it turns out, and it's not. Obviously. The deterioration and atrophy of muscles and bone tissue is still present in martians, just not to the extent that we feared."

Chief paused, as if he realized he was ranting. Then he took a deep breath and just kept on talking.

"Command never released the identities of the donors. Not even to me. Anyways. Despite the gravity on mars being adequate for humans, the clone program was still kept alive. It was used as a means of recruiting fresh, strong, focused, near-perfect soldiers in a time when there weren't enough civilian humans to spare. Every life was precious in the early days of the HUD. We are the 6th... and final group to touch down on this planet. And we are officially and legally, not considered people. We have no rights. That's why we spent so much time on Titan, getting used to pain and protocol. Why they kept us busy with, in some cases, with archaic studies. It's so that you all wouldn't have the time or the inkling to question the status quo. To look deeper into the systems in place and find the truth."

"How long have you known." Carson asked him.

"Since we were 16."

The two men then just stood there, staring at each other until the comm's blasted Tucker's voice through their earpiece.

"Charges set at 2nd location. Man... I wish you guys could see this! Are we sure command wants us to--"

"Thank you Cadet. Keep moving. Over and out." Chief cut him off and signed out of the comm's. Carson suddenly had a suspicious thought.

"We're all just Cannon fodder to them. We aren't even people in their eyes. So why would they trust you with all this knowledge? How do you know all this?"

"Do you remember that time on Titan, when we were 9.... Remember when there was surplus in the regular food shipment that one month, with the chocolate, and we stashed it in the cargo bin next to the entrance to the maze?" Chief asked him.

"Yes..."

Carson did remember. They had been hungry for so long. They had been given extremely meager rations the previous few months, and the extra food had seemed like a prize worth its weight in gold. They walked with full bellies for less than 2 days before the Command officers began picking them up, one by one, interrogating them.

Carson remembered he had been scared and folded quickly under their "questioning". The food didn't seem to be worth the pain he endured. After he folded, they locked him up in isolation for the next 5 days and that was that. He had always thought it had been a punishment, but now looking back on it...

"It was another test... wasn't it..." Carson asked.

"Precisely." Chief verified. "Apparently, I was the last person of our batch to fold. There are a number of other incidents. But when I look back on it, I believe that was the particular test I passed to gain this position. So In essence, I was chosen to be Chief in Command... based solely on my ability to.. 'keep a secret'."