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

  The man shrugged negligently. “As good a name as any.”

  “Why do you help them?”

  “It’s in my nature, Harry.” He held the ladder in his left hand, leaning toward the condemned prisoner. “There’s something in your nature, Harry. Something you’ll find useful in the next few minutes.” He held his right hand out to the screaming crowds on the far side of the stadium. “Recognize the place?”

  “This is where Orontes fought before he joined the resistance.”

  A knife ejected from a panel behind the ladder, and tumbled towards the sand.

  “That’s right, and he understood the problems of fighting with a short blade.” Benedict leaned back out of the way as the chairs began to move, their seats folding down. “Remember, Harry,” he called as the two prisoners dropped six feet to the sand.

  No such thing as a professional knife fighter, Harry thought as he rolled to his feet. He knew the thought had come from Orontes’ memories. Win or lose, this will be ugly. He threw himself backward to avoid his opponent’s strike, so close he could smell the stink of the man’s breath as it misted the cold air. His enemy must have landed right on the knife because his left arm was already bleeding. He didn’t carry on with his attack. He’s no stranger to killing, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing when his victim sees him coming.

  As the other man began to circle, Harry suddenly felt something flow over him. A calm resolve suddenly took hold. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before and he knew he would have to kill his opponent quickly or die. He was ready to survive this. Wait for the moment.

  The other prisoner suddenly lunged. Commit. Harry moved to the side so fast that he thought he might have bruised his brain against his own skull. He latched onto his opponent’s arm and threw him brutally to the ground, driving his right knee down onto the Oaxian’s head as he fell over him to snatch up the dropped knife. He rolled back driving the knife into his enemy’s neck.

  The crowd was cheering, possibly for him but he wasn’t sure and didn’t care. He looked around and saw three opponents closing on him. The two survivors from the first two fights had come his way as well as one of the prisoners from a subsequent drop. I’ll bet they’ve been offered a pardon to make sure I’m dead.

  Keep them apart. Harry started toward the one who approached from his right. He moved at a steady jog, conserving his energy.

  Air him out. Harry had several centuries of accumulated Oaxian memories crammed into his head and he understood the reference immediately. Prisoners usually attacked each other in the exercise yard where the guards ‘aired them out’. The term had become synonymous with the aggressive, unstructured attack common among inmates.

  He aimed his first cut at his opponent’s knife hand and the Oaxian pulled his hand back. Harry was already bringing his blade back and drove it into the man’s right shoulder. Wasting no time he pulled his hand back only far enough to stab again, repeatedly jabbing into any target of opportunity.

  He’s out of it. Get on to the next one. He spun to see the next man slowing from a dead run, only twenty feet away. He must have been hoping to catch Harry while he was still busy stabbing, but now he slowed to a walk as he held his knife out.

  Throw the dice again. Harry launched at his third opponent at full speed, causing him to stop in alarm. His mouth worked as though trying to speak, but nothing coherent came out as he started to step back.

  Harry used the same move, slicing first at his opponent’s weapon hand, and then bulling his way in with a flurry of cuts. The roar of the crowd was undoubtedly for him. They were chanting ‘Harry’ as his latest victim fell. He fought a wave of revulsion at what he was doing, reminding himself that half measures would only get him killed.

  Harry? He scanned the arena. Three more were left but they were gathering together. They would rush him as a group and then turn on each other once he was dead. I identified myself as Harrison. They have my memories, up on the station, but why would somebody bother to spread the diminutive version of my name?

  Another name began to grow in counterpoint to his own, until they were being alternated by the crowd as they screamed themselves hoarse.

  And suddenly it made sense.

  Lothbrok.

  Harry grinned. He looked around, seeing a fourth figure approaching from behind. He wore the same cold weather cloak favored by the locals but he dropped it to reveal the articulated plate armor of a Midgaard EVA suit. He was an Alliance officer, and not just any officer. He had fought by Harry’s side before, in a fight that had restored the noble status of the Midgaard’s house in the process.

  “You’re supposed to be working,” the Lord of Beringsburg called to him in Dheema. “And here I find you, enjoying the high life.”

  Harry laughed as he embraced his friend. The laugh echoed through the stadium. The crowd would be curious at this new development and one of the sound engineers had managed to pick up their conversation. The chanting was still strong.

  He was struck by a sudden inspiration, a memory of a famous fighter’s last words in this very arena. It was a speech that had been kept alive through centuries of simmering insurgency. He spared a glance at the three remaining convicts. The odds were too close to even now and they had stopped their advance.

  “Oaxians,” he boomed, his voice amplified with no processing delay at all. “You were free once, and proud.” He gazed around at the stands as the cheering faded to near total silence. Then a buzz started to build as they recognized the quote from Orontes’ last moments. He drew a deep breath and shouted. “And you will be again!”

  There was the briefest of pauses, and then a half million voices began to scream their approval. The sound sent tingles down Harry’s spine.

  Lothbrok touched his wrist pad. “Now would be a perfect time.” He said quietly, his voice not audible to the crowds who drowned out even the amplified systems of the arena.

  Before Harry had a chance to wonder what Lothbrok was talking about, a series of brilliant flashes drew his eyes upwards. The Dactari station was a massive thing, visible in the evening sun and it was clearly visible now, through the oculus, as it broke apart in fire and chaos. All around it, the funeral pyres of the local security fleet marked the end of the enemy presence. The stadium’s exterior cameras picked up the spectacle and replayed it on the interior screens. Already whipped into a frenzy, the crowd descended into complete chaos.

  Dactari guards around the perimeter of the sandy killing grounds began backing away from the walls as Oaxians began to spill over the barrier. The dividing line between spectator and fighter had been erased in the anonymity of the mob, the spur of spectacle, the goad of ancient pride.

  A Midgaard shuttle dropped through the oculus like a thunderbolt, coming to land ten feet away, its ramp already open. “This is your moment,” Harry roared at the crowd and they loved him for it. He joined Lothbrok on the ramp and they lifted off as it closed.

  “Gods, Harry! That was a brilliant bit of theater.” Lothbrok clapped him on the shoulder. “I had a whole speech worked out but I don’t think it would have had half the effect that you got with twelve words. Where did you come up with it?”

  “One of their rebel leaders,” Harry said quietly. He looked over at his friend. “You started them chanting our names?”

  “Of course. I started them on your name when you made your first kill. By the second, it had spread to a quarter of the stadium, so I yelled out that ‘Lothbrok would not let such a brave man die alone’ and I jumped in.” He waved Harry to a seat. “Always get the crowd on your side if you plan to make a public spectacle of yourself.”

  “I’m surprised they let you come after me.”

  “They didn’t,” he answered simply. “Towers gave me some sympathetic goat’s droppings about risking thousands to save one good officer and Caul just stood there and nodded. We came anyway.”

  “We?”

  “Carol brought the Völund. She took out the garrison ships with those nast
y little Mosquitoes of yours while my boys hit the stations.”

  “Your boys didn’t happen to ransack that main station before they blew it, did they?”

  “No time for that,” the big Midgaard grinned. “This was just a quick smash-and-grab, and you’re the grab. Reinforcements are probably already on their way here to stop us.”

  There are other stations like that one, Harry thought. “I may not have gotten the parts that I came here for, but I did manage to stumble onto something far more important while I was here.” He grinned at Lothbrok, finally accepting that he was going to live. Every sense was hyperactive. Even the air of the shuttle, tainted with metal and hydraulic fluid, had never smelled so sweet.

  And he had gathered information that completely justified the risk his friends had taken on his behalf. “I’ve got an idea you can help me with.”

  Part of the Solution

  The Old Man & Faust

  The Midway, Weirfall Orbit

  Dwight almost bumped into the guide who had stopped at the hatch to Towers ready room and he shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Time to focus, you’ll only get one chance to get them on side.

  “You’re on your own, folks.” The 2nd lieutenant punched a button to open the hatch and waved them on.

  Dwight followed Shelby through and the heavy panel slid shut behind him. The floor in here was the same steel decking as in the hallway, but a large Persian rug covered much of the open space. A low table sat in the middle of the rug, surrounded by three leather couches. The wall on the inboard side of the room was decorated with a row of portraits, pride of place given to a preserved copy of an antique magazine that depicted a naval officer and a model aircraft carrier.

  The outboard side was half wardrobe and half windows and Dwight wandered over to look out at a magnificent view of Weirfall. A chime sounded and he looked down to see a coffee maker, its light blinking. A jury rigged transformer was wired to its top and several copper lines snaked out from the bottom to disappear into the upper left side. Shelby remained by the hatch, not moving a muscle.

  “It was a gift from my sister.” The voice sounded inside his helmet, the internal speakers reproducing the direction of the sound.

  Dwight spun in surprise at the unexpected interruption. Towers was standing at the door of a small side room, drying his hands on a towel. A headset hung from his right ear. He wasn’t a very large man but he seemed to be, nonetheless.

  “A gift, sir?”

  “The coffee pot,” he explained as he hung the towel neatly on a ring inside the small washroom. He walked over to the couches and dropped onto the one that faced the windows, indicating with a wave that Dwight and Shelby should also take a seat. “I can’t bring myself to let it go. Engineering found me a new heating element down on Weirfall and rigged it up so it would still work. Not that we have much coffee left…”

  “We have quite a lot on the Pandora, sir,” Shelby offered, joining Dwight on the couch opposite the admiral. “Figured you might be glad to get a taste of fresh stuff for a change.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Captain. I’m almost ready to take my chances on infected coffee.”

  That sounds like an opportunity to bring up our purpose in coming here, Dwight realized but, in the time it took him to think it, Towers had already moved on.

  “Intriguing name, Pandora,” he mused. “Since evil has already been unleashed, am I to assume that your ship’s name indicates hope?”

  Before Dwight could answer, the hatch slid open and a middle-aged officer entered, a tablet in one hand and a steel travel mug in the other.

  “Dr. Young, Captain Shelby, this is Dr. Strauss, our chief medical officer.” Towers grinned and waved the new arrival over to the coffee pot. “You can see why my personal stock is almost gone: damn freeloaders always show up with an empty mug in hand. I’d offer you some, but I’m not sure how we’d get it into your helmets.”

  Dr. Strauss helped himself to a mug of black coffee before moving to one of the couches, reaching up to activate his headset before sitting. “Did I miss anything?” He took a sip and then set the mug on the low table with an appreciative sigh.

  “Not really,” Towers answered. “They were just about to tell me whether there was any hope in the bottom of Pandora’s Box.”

  “It was a jar, actually,” Dwight corrected nervously, trying to frame his thoughts.

  “What now?” Towers demanded.

  “Um, Erasmus got the translation wrong,” Dwight wanted to squirm under the admiral’s stern gaze. “The uh, original Greek word was ‘pithos’ which means…”

  “Look, son,” Towers cut him off. “She could have been throwing a damned flatware party for all I care. Skip the history lesson and just tell us why the hell you’re here.”

  “Right, uhhh…” He clenched a fist, trying to force himself to concentrate, to choose his words carefully. “OK, the disease, in a slightly different form,” he said slowly, “actually gives immunity, once it fully infects all of the body’s tissues.”

  Strauss was leaning forward to grab his cup, but stopped and rested his elbow on his right knee as he looked over at Dwight. “Doctor, are you saying that it’s like using an inert form of a disease to educate the immune system?”

  “Almost,” Dwight was starting to relax as he realized he had someone in the room who could understand what he was saying. Just be careful how much you say. He didn’t think it would help anything for them to know of the role he played in this plague. “In this case, it’s actually a live, but modified, version of the disease.”

  “Why use a live version of the pathogen?” Strauss was looking at Dwight as one might regard a seriously ill relative. “What possible reason could you have?”

  “Two reasons,” Dwight answered. “The live version becomes an organelle that produces, among other things, an antibody that recognizes an antigen on the deadly version of the disease.”

  Strauss looked off into the middle distance as he absorbed this. Finally he gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “OK, that’s pretty much all you need, but what’s the second reason?”

  “My current life expectancy, now that I’ve had the shot, is just over two thousand years.” He watched as the two officers frowned and then, predictably, looked at each other.

  Strauss was the first to respond. “You mind explaining that?”

  “The organelle’s main function is to maintain your genome, to prevent deterioration of the chromosomes.” Dwight waved at Shelby, next to him on the couch. “Captain Shelby here is much younger, so her genes were in better condition than mine. She has over three thousand years on her clock.”

  “Shelby, is this true?” Towers still had a look of disbelief on his face.

  “Yes, sir,” she answered. “Humans are only surviving this by becoming what is essentially a new species. One that looks the same, but lives for as long as seven thousand years.”

  “Like the Midgaard,” Towers said quietly.

  Strauss held up a finger, staring down at his mug for a moment before looking over at Dwight. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He demanded. “Some son of a bitch figured out why the Midgaard live so long and tried to adapt it for Human use.”

  Dwight fought back a feeling of alarm. “That’s pretty much it,” he said. “Now that it’s loose, we have no choice but to start vaccinating.”

  “Why the reluctance?” Towers’ voice had a dangerous undercurrent to it. “It sounds like this is viewed as a last resort. What’s the hidden cost you aren’t telling us about?”

  “Roughly one in sixty of the patients mutate the retroviral component of the vaccination and turn into plague victims,” Dwight admitted. “And that means you can’t do this on a voluntary basis. Either everybody gets the shot or we pack up and head home.”

  “And if we don’t inoculate the fleet, we can never go home, can we?” Towers got up from his seat and walked over to the window. “We end up living out our days on a planet that’s becoming increasingly unhappy wit
h our presence as it is.”

  “Sir?” Shelby came over to the window to look down at the planet. “They don’t want us here anymore?”

  “Every planet in the Republic relies on the products of other planets, Captain.” Towers nodded at the sphere beyond the window. “Weirfall produces the best hulls for warships and freighters, but they don’t make the systems that those hulls need in order to be called ships. Economic independence has been illegal for thousands of years.” He looked over at Shelby. “When we carved this world out of the Republic, they lost the ability to produce their chief product. If we can’t get their citizens back to work soon, we’re done for.”

  “Well, at least we could start receiving shipments from home again,” Strauss offered. “And frankly, we knew it would only be a matter of time before someone escaped Earth and showed up here with the infection. Vaccination would protect against that.”

  “For some,” Towers said sadly as he turned to face his chief medical officer. “One in sixty? Hell, that means I’d be killing close to a thousand people on the Midway alone. I’ve got nine thousand crew and two Marine Expeditionary Forces on this ship. Fleet wide, we’re talking tens of thousands.”

  “How many will die when a patrol runs into a load of refugees from home?” Strauss asked reasonably. “I know no amount of talk will ever convince you that you aren’t responsible for the deaths to come, but I don’t see how we have a choice in the matter.”

  “It’ll sure make a difference in our age attrition,” the admiral sighed as he turned to Dwight. “What would you need from us?”

  “We have eighty thousand doses, more than enough to cover the crew on the Midway while we set up a production facility to vaccinate the rest of the fleet.” Dwight dreaded the months to come. He knew he would rot in hell one day. “I can start today, if you want.”

  “Dr. Strauss will see that you have whatever you need for vaccine production, here on the Midway.” He turned to the tray by his coffee pot and turned over two mugs.