The old taunt rang through his ears. Just like a clone! All the human efforts at instilling pride in the clones had vanished before the taunts. Clones were supposed to be extra-human, built for precision performance. Humans did not like that. Clones of Moonbase did not look different from humans, did not talk different . . . but separation developed eccentricities. Just like a clone.

He imagined a Moonbase instructor, looking at him out of that blasphemous screen, lecturing on the intricacies of systems monitors, reprimanding: “That’s just like a clone, walking out on paradise.”

His army was almost into range of the Redoubt’s smallest weapons now, less than two hundred meters away. Thomas shook himself out of his reverie—hell of a way for a general to behave! He looked left and right. They were well fanned out. He paused beside a tall, black rock—taller than he. The Redoubt loomed ahead, prickly with the muzzles of its cutters. Panille could not come any closer. Thomas turned and waved for Panille to stop, saw the poet obey. The army would have to go on alone from here. They could not risk their most valuable weapon.

The rock beside him began to glow. Thomas leaped to the right as the rock erupted in molten orange. A tiny splash of it burned his left arm. He ignored it, shouted: “Attack!”

His mob started a shambling run toward the Redoubt. As they moved, exterior hatches in the Redoubt’s perimeter snapped open. Defenders swarmed onto the plain carrying ‘burners and lasguns. They raced forward in a confused mass toward Panille’s projected images. As they came within a few meters, their confusion increased. Targets dissolved before them. They stumbled left and right, shooting. Random shots dropped some of the army. The Redoubt’s cutters began to sparkle with incandescent beams which probed the plain.

“Fire!” Thomas screamed. “Fire!”

Some of his people obeyed. But the Redoubt’s defenders presented the same genetic mix as the army’s. Attackers and defenders, indistinguishable without uniforms, stumbled into each other. Searing beams wavered in wild arcs, cutting friend and foe alike. Bloody bodies lay on the plain—some dismembered, some screaming. Thomas stared in horror at the arterial geyser from a headless torso directly to his left. Red spray splashed all around as the body tumbled forward.

What have I done? What have I done?

None of these people, attackers or defenders, knew how to fight a proper war. They were hysterical instruments of destruction—nothing more. Fewer than a fourth of the defenders had reached his army. What did it matter? The plain around the Redoubt was a bloody shambles.

He signaled to the cutter crew on his left. “Cut through their wall!” But his crew had been decimated, the cutter’s improvised wheels disabled. It stood canted over to its right, the deadly muzzle pointed at the ground. The survivors crouched behind the cutter.