The Orphan Army

by Jonathan Maberry

  There it was.

  The red craft was still there, ringed by yellow and white lights. The eight metal legs all looked sturdy now, and the loading ramp was down. Bizarre figures moved in and out of the ship, carrying bundles and supplies. They were repellent five-foot-tall insects, their glistening shells the color of rust, the emerald lifelights burning on their chests.

  As if sensing his question, Evangelyne leaned close and whispered, “Drones. They’re like a slave race. Not sure if they even have their own personalities. They do the manual labor for the Bugs. I saw them once before, when my aunt Clara took me to one of the strip mines. There were thousands of them.”

  “Eww . . . They’re like big cockroaches.”

  “What’s wrong with cockroaches?” asked Evangelyne.

  “Um . . . they’re disgusting?”

  She shook her head. “You people are weird.”

  He tried to figure a good way to respond to that but came up short and let it go.

  Then Milo stiffened when he realized that some of the bundles being moved onto the Huntsman’s ship were boxed supplies taken from his own camp. Crates of goods, cases of weapons, big jugs of water. Everything that could be salvaged after the attack had apparently been looted by the Bugs. It made Milo so angry.

  “They take everything,” he growled quietly.

  “It is worse than that!” whispered Halflight in a shrill little voice. She hovered between them and pointed. Milo followed the angle of her finger and saw something that hit him like a punch to the face.

  In a makeshift pen between two of the landing struts were dozens of figures. Not drones or shocktroopers. Not Stingers, ether. These were humans. Every prisoner had a thin metal collar clamped around his neck, and each collar had a ring set in front and another in the back. The Bugs had threaded these rings with tough cable that connected them all in a long line, one to the other.

  Milo recognized every single one of them. Survivors of the camp. Milo counted them. Thirty-eight. Mostly children and older camp followers. No soldiers.

  They were ragged, soot-stained, frightened, and desperate.

  And among them, unmistakably, was one diminutive figure with pale hair, one tall, gaunt figure with wild brown hair, and one short, chubby figure.

  Lizabeth.

  Barnaby.

  And Shark.

  They were alive!

  Then his heart sank. They were alive for now.

  His friends were penned and bound. Waiting to be taken aboard the Huntsman’s ship.

  As what?

  Slaves?

  Or food?

  Milo felt his blood turn to icy slush. But deep in his chest, a small and angry fire began to burn.

  “Change of plan,” he said grimly.

  Milo stood up and walked right into the clearing.

  He didn’t try to hide. He didn’t have his slingshot in his hand. No grenades, either. He walked slowly from the night-dark woods to the ramp that stretched like a black tongue from the mouth of the Huntsman’s red ship. He paused only for a moment as he approached the steady line of cockroachlike drones. They passed him by without so much as a quiver of their antennae. Milo waited for a break in the line, passed through, and crossed to the pen where the captives were kept. The guard was distracted, looking at a bunch of fireflies that had dropped from the trees and swirled around him. While his head was turned, Milo walked past and entered the pen.

  The captives were huddled down and didn’t notice anyone or anything. It was as if he were completely invisible to them.

  Milo found a place to sit and lowered himself to the ground.

  As the cluster of fireflies broke apart, the shocktrooper spotted a trio of drones who were clustered by the edge of the woods. The ’trooper made a series of loud and irritable clicking noises at these drones and pointed to the pile of boxes. The drones hurried over, picked up bundles, and joined the line of shuffling insects.

  Satisfied, the shocktrooper glanced at the pen of prisoners and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It adjusted its grip on the batonlike shock rod it held and went on guarding the captives the way it had for hours.

  It took another ten minutes for the cockroach drones to finish loading the stolen goods. Then the guard was joined by three other ’troopers. They each held a shock rod before them as they opened the gate to the pen.

  One of the prisoners, a tall, gawky teenager with wild brown hair, spread his arms protectively in front of the others.

  “Y’all stay back,” he warned, speaking both to the ’troopers and his fellow prisoners.

  A ’trooper scuttled forward on four legs and gestured to the ramp. Once, twice. The movements jerky and terse.

  “I don’t tink so, me,” growled the teenager in a thick Cajun accent. “I wasn’t born to be Sunday roast for a bunch of overgrown head lice.”

  Then, out of the side of his mouth, in a tight whisper, he said, “When I rush him, make a break for it. Head to da closest bolt-hole and—”

  Before the teenager could even finish, the shocktrooper jabbed him in the chest. There was a huge snapping sound as the electric charge shot through the Cajun’s body. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of ozone and the sound of screams. The teenager dropped to his knees, his face going slack, eyes rolling white. Other guards reached out to try to shock him again, and they would have succeeded if not for a short, chubby kid who caught the Cajun and dragged him backward out of reach.

  “Leave him alone!” shouted the fat kid.

  The ’troopers stood their ground, each of them making loud clicking noises. They showed the business ends of their shock rods to the rest of the prisoners. They pointed to the ramp. The Dissosterin couldn’t speak English, but they made their point with perfect clarity.

  The prisoners shivered and wailed, frightened to the point of despair. However, they began shuffling forward, each of them tethered by the collars and steel cable. The fat kid wrapped the Cajun’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him to his feet with a grunt of effort. Together they shambled out of the pen toward the ship. Soon all thirty-­nine captives moved up the ramp and vanished inside.

  Then the Huntsman himself came and mounted the ramp. The ramp retracted, the door slid shut, the engines throbbed with energy, and the big craft rose away from the Louisiana swamps. The air beneath it shimmered and swirled.

  Within moments, the red craft was gone, soaring through the night sky.

  Shark wrapped his arm around Lizabeth and held her close. The little girl was weeping uncontrollably. Barnaby lay with his head in her lap, his face tight with pain.

  “It’ll be okay,” murmured Shark over and over again. However, the haunted look in his eyes told what he truly felt about their chances. There were dried tear tracks on his grimy cheeks.

  “We’re going to die,” said Lizabeth in a tiny voice. “They’re going to eat us.”

  “No, they won’t,” soothed Shark. “That’s not what they do. Don’t worry. Aunt Jenny and Milo’s mom will find us. They’re still out there. They’ll come find us.”

  He went on and on like that, telling lies that were built on the thinnest framework of hope. Gradually, Lizabeth’s sobs slowed, but they did not stop.

  The prisoners were crammed into a small chamber that stank of engine oil and insect droppings. Shark stroked the girl’s hair and looked around, nodding to some of the other refugees.

  “He’s right, Lizabeth,” said a voice. “They’re not going to eat you.”

  Every head in the group whipped around to stare at a figure that sat alone in one corner. A person none of them had even seen until that moment. They stared in shocked silence as Milo Silk stood up.

  “Hey, guys,” he said.

  Shark’s mouth opened and closed like a trout.

  Lizabeth stared in mute silence for two seconds.

  Then she burst into fresh tears.

  “Oh no!” she wailed. “Milo! They got you, too!”

  Shark and Barnaby and Lizabeth and a dozen o
ther refugees all reached for Milo at once and pulled him into a cluster hug that nearly crushed the air from his lungs.

  “I didn’t see you in the pen!” said Shark, hugging him. “Don’t know how I missed you. I’m so sorry to see you, dude.”

  Milo pushed his friends gently back. As he did, Barnaby reached out a weak hand and touched Milo’s neck. “Hey . . . you don’t got no collar, you. How’d you cut yourself loose? Dey took all our knives.”

  “Never had a collar,” said Milo, “because I’m not a prisoner. I never was.”

  “Den how—?”

  Milo didn’t have the time to explain how Halflight had used her glamour powers to make Milo look like a ’trooper guard, or how she’d distracted the real guard with a firefly illusion while Milo slipped into the slave pen. Or even how she’d used a much smaller spell to create the illusion that Milo wore a prisoner’s collar. Those explanations could wait for later. If there was a later.

  Instead he said, “Long story.”

  He fished his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, opened the tiny wire cutters, and handed it to Shark. Then he removed a wire handsaw from his scavenger microtool kit and gave it to Lizabeth. “Cut everyone free and stay ready.”

  “Ready? Ready for what? They destroyed the camp. They got us. We’re done.”

  “No, we’re not,” said Milo. “We’re going to get everyone out.”

  “‘We’?” asked Lizabeth. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  Milo grinned. “I didn’t come alone.”

  “What?” asked Shark, totally confused. “Did Aunt Jenny and your mom get back? Are there soldiers here?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then—”

  “Trust me,” said Milo. “We have a plan.”

  “Are you nuts?” demanded Shark. “Did you see that thing who’s in charge?”

  “The Huntsman. Sure. I saw him.”

  “And did you see all dem shocktroopers?” asked Barnaby.

  “Saw ’em.”

  “Den how you going to get us out of a moving spaceship with all of dese monsters out there, you?”

  Behind Milo, the door to the prison compartment slid open. Shark and the others stared with mute incomprehension at the figures that stood in a cluster. A wolf with eyes the color of a winter moon. A boy who looked like a living tree. Another who seemed to be made completely of rocks, who had a huge salamander resting on his shoulders, and a tiny figure with fiery hair who sat astride a hummingbird.

  “Because,” said Milo, “I brought a few monsters of my own.”

  Before the prisoners could ask the ten thousand questions that rose to their lips, Milo shushed them and backed out of the chamber.

  “Be ready,” he said quickly. “If this works, we’re going to need to move fast.”

  The door slid shut, hiding them all. Milo caught a last glimpse of Shark staring at him with wide, wild eyes.

  Then he was alone in a steel corridor with the Orphan Army. Milo slumped back against the wall, his air of cool confidence sliding off of him like melting slush.

  “What if your plan doesn’t work?” asked Oakenayl.

  Milo sighed. “Then I guess none of them will ever know.”

  They shared a long, knowing look. Evangelyne ­morphed back into her human form—a sight that still gave Milo a serious jolt.

  “Everything went smoothly,” she said. “Halflight’s glamour held. They thought we were drones carrying supplies. Mook carried Iskiel.”

  “Mook,” said the rock boy. The fire salamander hissed faintly. Small puffs of smoke curled from its nostrils. It made Milo wonder if Evangelyne was being facetious with her comment about dragons only being a myth.

  “I don’t like being here,” said Oakenayl. “If my construct is destroyed up here, I’ll die too. The same with Mook.”

  The rock boy shrugged. “Mook.”

  Milo grinned. “Then I guess you better not die.”

  It took a moment, but Oakenayl managed a smile too. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Yeah, looks that way.”

  Oakenayl looked up and down the corridor. “Big ship.”

  The Huntsman’s ship was at least two hundred feet across. Inside, the lights were low and set to a weird color scheme—yellows and greens. He wondered if that was the part of the spectrum best suited to alien eyes. He personally found it difficult, and it ignited a small headache behind his eyes.

  The tree spirit turned to Milo. “What’s next?”

  It felt weird to be asked, as if he knew how to do this. Sure, it was his plan, but that’s all it was. A plan. Something he’d made up on the spot. It’s not like he’d ever done this before.

  On the other hand, neither had the orphans.

  They expect me to figure it out, thought Milo. What if I can’t?

  The answer to that was obvious. It was the answer to virtually every question from here on out.

  If he got it wrong—if any of them got any of it wrong—then they’d all die.

  It was as simple and as ugly and as certain as that.

  Milo bent close to Halflight. “Can you scout the ship? See if you can find out where the Huntsman is, and also where the command center is. Don’t get seen, though. If anyone’s around, use a glamour thingy, okay?”

  “I will,” said the sprite, “but glamours are difficult. I do not know how many more I can do without resting.”

  “How much rest are we talking?”

  The sprite paused. “If I exhaust myself? Days. Maybe a week.”

  That was like a punch in the face to Milo. “Um . . . then I guess it’d be better just to not be seen. Stay out of sight.”

  She put on a brave smile. “I will do my best.”

  With that, the hummingbird zoomed off down the corridor. While they waited, Milo and the others found the compartment where equipment was stored. There were no guards, so they slipped inside.

  It was an odd thing, but there didn’t seem to be many guards anywhere. Once the ship was in the air, the drones and the shocktroopers seemed to all vanish. Milo wondered—­and worried—about that.

  While they waited, he explained to the others about how the Dissosterin ships were piloted.

  “The EA techs said that a five-year-old could fly one of these ships,” he said. “There’s something called a control sphere. It’s like a hologram. You guys know what that is?”

  Evangelyne nodded. “It’s like a glamour but made with science instead of magic.”

  “Kind of,” agreed Milo. “Well, Bug ships have this thing that creates a 3-D hologram of whatever craft you’re on. You stick your hand inside and then do whatever. If you want to go up, you raise your hand. Down is down. Whatever your hand does, the ship does.”

  Oakenayl frowned. “Why make it so simple?”

  “Why make it hard?” asked Milo. “Let’s face it: The Bugs aren’t smart. Sure, some of them are, but not most of them. The shocktroopers are scary and tough, but not really brilliant. The drones are dumb as barrels of hair.”

  “They conquered Earth,” said the oak boy.

  “A virus could have wiped people out too,” said Milo. “That doesn’t make it smart.”

  “He’s right,” said Evangelyne. “Besides, he saw how the Swarm works when he was inside the Huntsman’s memories. It’s a hive mind. The real brainpower is in the queens. Everything else is like ants in an anthill. They do their jobs and that’s it. Why wouldn’t they make their tech easy to use? The easier it is, the more of the Swarm that can use it.”

  “So what?” insisted Oakenayl. “What does it matter if they can all use it?”

  “Because,” said Milo, “if any of them can fly this ship, then any of us can do it too.”

  Even Mook understood that. He nodded and said, “Mook.”

  There was the faintest scratching at the door—quick and with a detectable pattern.

  “It’s Halflight,” said Evangelyne, rushing to open the door.

  The hummingbird flew in and hovered in th
e dim air between them as they huddled around.

  “There is good news, good news, bad news, and bad news,” she said quickly.

  “Give it to us good, bad, good, bad,” said Oakenayl. “We need to know where we stand.”

  The sprite pointed to the closed door. “I found where the drones and shocktroopers are. As soon as the ship took off, they all climbed into holes in the walls.”

  “Like bees in a hive,” murmured Evangelyne.

  “Creepy,” said Milo. “That’s good news, right? ’Cause they’re all asleep?”

  “Yes, except one ’trooper who is piloting the ship. Oh, and I found the command center. The bridge, I suppose, because it is where the pilot sits. The bad news is that the Huntsman is not asleep.”

  “Figured that,” said Milo. He touched the bag of grenades. He had three left. Not that they wanted to use one on the ship while it was in flight. However, it was nice to know that they had some real firepower.

  “What’s the other good news?” asked the wolf girl.

  “The Huntsman still has the Heart of Darkness with him. I saw him holding it and staring at it. Trying to understand it. I could feel the anger rolling off of him. The frustration. And the desire. He wants to unlock the Heart more than I think anyone has ever wanted anything.”

  Oakenayl asked, “Halflight . . . what was the other bad thing?”

  The sprite looked nervous. “Milo’s plan—to surprise the Huntsman, overpower him, grab the Heart, and pilot this ship to safety? That is not going to work.”

  “Why not?” they all asked.

  “If the drones and ’troopers are all asleep, then it should be easy,” said Evangelyne.

  “He’s already hurt,” said Milo. “I think we can take him.”

  “None of that matters because—” began Halflight, but before she could finish, there was a heavy clang of metal that vibrated through the entire ship. The sound of the engine changed too. It began winding down.

  As if it was shutting itself off.

  “What . . . ?” began Oakenayl, but he let it trail off.

  “The ship is much faster than we thought,” said Half­light. “I saw where we are heading, and we are already out of time.”