The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) Read online

  THE ORPHAN ALLIANCE

  Published by A.G. Claymore

  Edited by B.H. MacFadyen

  Copyright 2013 A.G. Claymore

  This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places, Incidents and Brands are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of any products referenced in this work of fiction which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Table Of Contents

  Part of the Problem

  Part of the Solution

  Paved with Good Intentions

  Turning the Corner

  Holding Ground

  Moving Forward

  From the Author

  Part of the Problem

  The Business of War

  Presh, Oaxes

  The scent of rancid cooking oil wafted into the shuttle, reminding Harry of the food markets on Weirfall. The two planets had traded regularly, before the Human/Midgaard Alliance carved Weirfall out of the Dactari Republic, and many of the same ‘food on a stick’ varieties were present in the markets of both worlds. There were always some vendors who continued to use their oil far longer than was advisable. His stomach rumbled as he recognized the spicy tang of fried chiari tails.

  Where was that smuggler? He’d left an hour ago, promising to return with lunch.

  He sat up suddenly, his right hand coming to rest on the handgrip of his pistol. When did everything suddenly go quiet? If his contact had arrived, it would have drawn no notice from the crowds outside the small smuggling shuttle. Harry was here to negotiate a price for control systems. Weirfall excelled in the construction of carbon hulls for warships, but lacked the electronics industries necessary for fitting out those hulls. The Oaxians specialized in the production of control systems but had no facilities for the production of hulls.

  The Law of Imperial Trade and Commerce had been created by the old empire and it was strictly enforced, even now, by the Republic. No planet could be allowed to attain economic independence. No more than sixty percent of a product could be manufactured on any single world. It was an effective means of suppressing rebellion as any world that broke away would soon find their economy in shambles.

  Now that Weirfall was an Alliance world – the only Alliance world – the level of unrest was quickly growing. Harry needed to convince the local corporate leaders on Oaxes to allow some of their shipments to be ‘captured’ by Alliance forces in return for generous payment. On the face of it, it sounded like a good plan. The companies could write off huge losses, leading to lower taxes while still getting the revenue.

  The main sticking point, as Harry had pointed out to Admiral Towers during the briefing, was the need for dozens of conspirators to keep their mouths shut. Someone else had cooked up this harebrained scheme, and Harry had been chosen by Towers because the admiral had known him for almost two decades.

  It was a half-baked, stop-gap scheme with small chance of success and a high probability of being compromised. Though he was glad to get away from Weirfall for a few days, this was certainly not the sort of mission he would have wanted. It was a measure of how desperate his old friend must have become that he would have asked Harry to even consider it.

  With Earth’s economies destroyed by the ravages of a global pandemic, they had nowhere to turn for anything. No food, spare parts or replacement troops were coming from home world anymore, and they were fast running out of money to buy the necessities from their Weiran allies.

  Knowing that the Alliance would be doomed if nothing was done to break the economic stalemate, Harry had assured Towers that he would do his very best to come home with an agreement from the Oaxians. Despite the necessity of the mission, he couldn’t shake that sixth sense that had kept him alive for so many years. It was telling him that no secret could be kept for long by so many conspirators.

  The gradual silence building outside the shuttle told him that he’d been right. At least one mouth had been busy. His money was on the smuggler who had brought him to this crowded market. The shifty little bastard would sell his own lungs, if the money was right.

  He pulled out his pistol, realizing that, after almost three years of war, he had never even fired the thing, except for training. With 48 rounds of caseless ammunition in two magazines, the selective-fire Colt could do a hell of a lot of damage in the few seconds it would take to empty itself.

  He stepped around the bulkhead that separated the passenger compartment from the cargo hold. Looking out the back ramp, he could see the silent crowd standing around the perimeter of the landing pad. The muted sounds of commerce drifted over their heads from the ramshackle collection of shops, but the Oaxians staring at him were silent… expectant.

  Some cast glances to the right or to a place above the shuttle.

  Air cover, Harry thought. Not leaving anything to chance. He sighed. I’m sure they’ve apprehended far more dangerous fugitives than me, since they’ve been fighting separatists for over a thousand years. He threw his pistol to the tarmac and slowly walked out into the sunshine, raising a hand to shield his eyes. The market was perched on a large platform that jutted out from the side of the massive city. To his left was a thousand meter drop into the canyon that the city arch spanned.

  There was nobody between him and the drop and he supposed there were some officers who would throw themselves off to avoid capture. He looked up at the graceful curve of the city skyline. He firmly believed that fortune favored the bold, and that it wanted nothing to do with a man who was busy accelerating at nine-and-a-quarter meters per second, every second, on his way to the muddy river that flowed far below the city.

  To his right, two squads of Dactari troops were waiting for him. The smaller unit was dressed in SWAT-type gear and they were plainly relieved at his easy surrender. The larger group, dressed in riot control equipment, quickly spread out to ensure the crowd wouldn’t interfere.

  An under officer walked over to Harry. “I claim you as a prisoner of conflict,” he declared in perfect English, looking up at his captive. “Tell me who you are here to meet and events will unfold more comfortably for you.”

  “Harrison Young,” Harry stated flatly as his hands were bound behind his back. “Captain, United States Navy. Serial - alpha-eighty-two, one-five-one, zero-seven-two, delta-seventy-five.”

  The Dactari officer’s raised eyebrows gave way to a frown as he realized that he was merely hearing Harry’s personal data. “You may think this is a joke, Harrison Young, but we will have what we need from you, whether you cooperate or not.”

  “Harrison Young,” Harry repeated. “Captain, United States Navy. Serial - alpha-eighty-two, one-five-one, zero-seven-two, delta-seventy-five.” The sooner they draw you into a conversation, H
arry remembered the old axiom from his academy days, the sooner you start talking.

  “Very well,” the under officer hissed as he waved at the armed transport that hovered above them. “You will find that life gets increasingly difficult from this point on.”

  Harry watched the transport descend, trying to keep his mind off the situation. The vehicle’s left engine had a rhythmic ‘thwup, thwup’ sound to it as it descended. Bad needle bearings on the port lifter, he mused. Could be the separatists out here are having more effect on the flow of goods than intelligence thought. He shrugged to himself as they started toward the small vessel’s ramp. Or they might just have shoddy maintenance.

  Imp and Immortality

  High Polar Orbit - Weirfall

  “Where’s the planet?” Dwight unbuckled his restraints and climbed down from his chair. During the long months in transit from Earth, he had slowly acquired privileges, including access to an unused weapons station chair on the under-crewed Hussar class vessel. He walked toward the front windows but stopped as a tracery of red streaks suddenly appeared in front of them. Is someone shooting at us? He didn’t want to come all this way just to die on arrival.

  “Unidentified vessel, this is Orbital Control,” a harsh voice boomed over the bridge speakers. “You have jumped into a restricted system. If you engage your pitch drives or activate your weapons, you will be fired upon. Identify yourself immediately. Over.”

  “Captain?” Dwight turned to look at the twenty-four-year-old captain. With the outbreak, any surviving officers were being promoted so fast that their rank insignia were often out of date. Captain Shelby was still wearing her Lieutenant’s insignia but she didn’t care. Her small crew knew and trusted her.

  “Better strap back in, Dr. Young,” she advised, opening a channel on the screen to her right. “This is Captain Erin Shelby of the Pandora. We’ve just arrived from Earth. Request permission to join the fleet. Over.”

  A long pause. “Roger, Pandora, confirm receipt of holding coordinates, proceed at one-tenth pitch and stand by to await further instructions.”

  “Roger, Orbital Control,” Shelby replied. “Coordinates received. Moving now. Out.” She turned to her helmsman. “One tenth, Edwards, so better make it one percent. We don’t want to surprise them into killing us just because they don’t know about our tandem lensed engines.”

  “What’s going on?” Dwight fumbled ineffectually with his buckles as he looked over at the captain.

  “We jumped in a bit too close to a fleet at war with no advance warning,” Shelby said with a grimace. “Now we move out of the arrival corridor and hope the CAP doesn’t get orders to destroy us. We did just arrive from a plague-infested planet, so they may not be all that happy to see us.”

  “The CAP?” Dwight looked out the window as they began to move.

  “Combat Air Patrol,” she answered. “I know there’s no air out here – but it’s traditional and has a pronounceable acronym. Combat Fleet Patrol just doesn’t work; does it?”

  “Who decides if we’re gonna live?” Dwight pulled his jacket closed. Did it suddenly get cold in here?

  “Well, I imagine that Admiral Towers has been notified by now,” Shelby replied mildly. “From what I’ve heard, he’s probably employing some fairly exciting language while he tries to decide what to do with us.” She grinned over at Dwight. “I wouldn’t be terribly pleased to learn that a plague ship had arrived from Earth.”

  “But we’re bringing the cure,” he protested. “You need to call them and explain why we came. We can’t come all this way just to be blown up by a poorly informed…”

  “Relax, Dr. Young,” Shelby replied calmly. “As long as we don’t make any aggressive moves, I’m reasonably certain they’ll give us the chance to explain ourselves.”

  “Reasonably?” Dwight’s voice rose an octave. “I’d have hoped for a little more than reasonably. If we…”

  “Pandora, Orbital Control. Switch to one-twenty megahertz, mode delta, and stand by. Over.”

  “You see?” She smiled as she turned her attention back to the screen. “Roger, Orbital Control. One-twenty megahertz, mode delta. Out.” She opened the new frequency and the encryption panel came to life, warbling as it compared coding keys with a corresponding system on the Midway.

  “Pandora, this is Admiral Towers,” a new voice boomed through the speakers. “Before I send you straight back to Earth, how about explaining what you thought you were going to accomplish by trying to join my fleet with an infected vessel?”

  Holding her hand up to the speakers in a ‘there – you see?’ gesture she grinned at Dwight. “Admiral, this is Captain Shelby. I happen to have a very good explanation for our presence out here, and Dr. Young here will be more than happy to explain the whole thing.”

  It took a couple of seconds for Dwight to realize that the sudden silence was supposed to be filled with his voice. He stumbled over his own words as he sought his footing against the irascible senior officer. “Umm sir, the reason we came is that the cure is the disease – I mean the disease itself is the cure,” he corrected lamely. “We can vaccinate your forces if you give me access to…”

  “I’m going to cut you off right there, young man,” Towers said quickly. “We don’t want any more being said over the air. Even a secure channel can be hacked.” He was quiet for a few moments. “Suit up. You and Captain Shelby. I’m sending over a shuttle with a decontamination cubicle. You’ll go through it in your suits and keep them on until we put you back on your pretty little ship. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shelby answered. The line went dead. “Duncan, you have the conn.” She climbed out of her chair and looked expectantly at Dwight.

  Should’ve stayed home and let someone else come, Dwight thought to himself. As soon as the thought formed, he knew it for a lie. When he was still on Earth, he couldn’t wait to leave. He shook the buckles loose, having failed to get them closed in the first place, and slid out of his chair. No sense in delaying this.

  Paths not Taken

  Dactari Logistics Station, Oaxian Orbit

  The restraint field deactivated and Harry collapsed, sobbing, to the floor. He was covered in a sheen of cold sweat and his stomach was a constricted knot. Guards grabbed his shivering form and heaved him up into a chair, yanking out intravenous lines and breathing tubes, and other lines that Harry didn’t want to even think about. A technician removed a cortical web from his shaved head, placing it gently in a tray that retracted into the white wall.

  Captain Harrison Young, United States Navy, had never found the time for family. The life of a captain is a lonely one and he had never settled down, never married, never had children.

  Now he had lived through that process dozens of times, and he was profoundly grateful to be lonely.

  The Dactari knowledge implanting machine was capable of extracting knowledge as well as inserting it, and he had lived through the extracted lives of at least thirty Oaxian resistance fighters as they sought to preserve their independence from the old empire that had preceded the Dactari Republic.

  Again and again, he had felt the despair as his belief in a just cause was eroded by the Human, or in this case, the Oaxian cost of resisting the Empire. He watched as a succession of spouses and children were enslaved or simply killed by callous Dactari warriors, the military race of the six hundred forty-ninth Emperor, Hemchala. He felt the emotions of every death and his soul ached for every lost loved one.

  His final life had been Orontes, second in command of the resistance. Orontes had been a master of edged weapons in the arena. His reputation, skill at training warriors and his personality had led to swift advancement through the ranks of the ill-fated patriots. Orontes had been forced to watch as his own family were executed in the very arena where he had made a name for himself. His youngest had only been three and he had watched her, desperately experiencing the last moments of her young life, wishing he could look away.

  Wishing he would not have to
see, but unwilling to ignore the last few seconds of her brilliant spark of sentience.

  Harry had become aware, as he shared Orontes’ grief, that his own life was being probed. While his defenses were occupied with the lives of those who had died thousands of years ago, his experiences were being teased out of every corner of his mind. He also sensed the presence of a voice, a human, who urged him to simply let go; let them have what they wanted. It would all be much easier if he didn’t fight it, if he made an attempt to see their side of things. Now, slumped in the chair, the man’s name surfaced…

  Benedict.

  Realities

  The Midway, Weirfall Orbit

  Dwight followed a pair of armed Marines as they moved down a corridor from the massive central hangar deck where he and Shelby had been put through a second decontamination shower. The harsh chemicals used for the second shower must have been stronger than the standard CDC fare – the Dr. Young on the front of his EVA suit was melted and running down the front plates. Thank God I was still in my suit.

  A young 2nd lieutenant was escorting them and they communicated via a small headset that protruded from one of his ears.

  The corridor was very much like those on the Pandora, only larger. Stanchions made of carbon fibre provided the structural support. Nearly a quarter of the Midway was made of the light carbon components, allowing for better acceleration. Steel plate and gratings covered the walking surfaces, allowing easy access to the fluid lines that ran beneath the floors. Cable trays, mounted overhead to carry conduits, snaked around corners to deliver power and data to the deepest reaches of the massive vessel. Unlike passenger craft, warships left their internal guts exposed, allowing for more efficient damage control.

  Everywhere Dwight looked he saw variations on the standard uniform. The blue on blue camouflage worn by the Navy was the common thread, but many tunics were missing the sleeves and some personnel wore only stained white t-shirts. Several were even walking the corridors in ragged shorts. “I thought the military was stricter when it came to dress codes.” He turned his head toward their young guide, not even noticing the smooth movement of the articulated neck rings of his suit.