The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3)

by A. G. Claymore

  “We think they’ll try to position themselves as the heroes who made the best of a bad situation,” Harry added quietly. “Of course, step two in the process is to give the citizens a sense of closure, the feeling that someone has been soundly punished for letting things get so bad.

  “They’ll turn on you, sure as hell.” The Human grinned. “We have a saying back home – if a politician ever pats you on the back, it’s because he’s looking for a good spot to stick the knife.”

  Those motherless clones! Reis looked again at the politicians, starting in slight shock as he realized his hand was resting against his empty holster. Heig was willing to give his life to expose those fools, and now they plan to pin their shame on us?

  “Good shipyards in orbit around Yaetho’kae,” Harry continued in a conversational tone. “Might be a few weeks before we send anyone there to garrison the place, but I’m sure looking forward to a good refit.”

  “Why would you warn me?”

  The Human sighed. “A few days ago, I would never have imagined warning a Dactari. Things change, and I’ve been burnt by politicians before.” He offered a parting nod and strolled back to his own people.

  A hand came to rest on Reis’ shoulder. “Flota, will you join us in the ruling chamber?” One of the Triumvirs, Obfuyco Xec, stepped around to face him, his right hand still on Reis’ shoulder.. “We want to reward you for your timely role in this unexpected battle.” He leaned in, dropping his voice to a stage whisper. “We would like you standing by our side as we announce Dactar’s newest armada!”

  The projections were still running down on the surface. They would wait until they had Reis firmly in their control before revealing their true intent.

  Gelna approached from the left, a troubled look on his face.

  Reis switched to English. “They are going to pin the blame on me and put me to death?”

  A nod. “I’d put money on it. It’s the only thing that might distract public attention from their role in this mess.”

  Xec looked at the two Dactari with growing anger. He would have to wait until he returned to the surface to hear a translation of this. The rest of the planet was probably hearing a translation right now.

  “Can you please ensure that I’m returned to my own ship when we leave here?”

  Another nod.

  “Would you like to come with me?”

  A long pause and a troubled countenance. “I think I’ll stay here, for now,” Gelna finally said. “The day may come when you need a bridge between your forces and the rest of the Republic.”

  My forces? Reis had to force himself to accept the implications of what he was about to do. He wasn’t planning to surrender meekly to these fools but, if he meant to do anything worthwhile, he would need force.

  And he would probably have to fight his way clear of Dactar against his own people.

  I’d better make my motives clear from the very start, before they regain control of the public message. He looked Xec in the eye. “I am not the armada you hinted at. He’s already been promoted. You want to claim that the military concealed the truth about the war from you.” He stepped in closer, forcing the politician to take a step back.

  “The truth,” Reis added forcefully, “is that you have been lying to the public and the military. You forced the defense council to grow a cloned invasion force on a beach-head planet rather than go to the expense of shipping a full-scale invasion force.”

  He waved at Gelna. “He told us how that force was defeated before it could even launch for Earth, and now they possess our technology.”

  Xec leaned in and poked Reis in the chest with an angry tail. “We cannot allow ourselves to squabble over rumors when there are barbarians orbiting our planet with their unspeakable weapons of extinction.”

  “They brought them here to get our attention.” Reis dismissed the alarming thought with a wave. “Had they really meant to use them, they would have fired as soon as they had the chance.” Good ploy, get the public scared enough to forget everything I’ve been saying.

  “Just because we are enlightened enough to refrain from such weapons, doesn’t mean they are.” Xec cast a wary glance at the Alliance officers.

  “Those weapons were captured on their way to Earth, three years ago,” Harry called across the table. “They were carrying Dactari crews, but we…” Towers waved him to silence.

  “We have used them,” Gelna added in a matter-of-fact voice. “We found the world where distortion drive was first invented. It was destroyed by mass drivers, possibly the same ones that the Humans now possess. Fourteen months after that planet died, Waeem Kib announced the ‘discovery’ of distortion technology here on Dactar. Twenty-three days later, he died in a mugging.”

  “Before anyone could ask him too many detailed questions about his work,” Kale drawled. He looked over at Reis. “You should’ve made Gelna into a military policeman – he’s good at it.”

  “Enough!” Xec thundered. “Flota Mas, you will return to the surface with us as ordered.”

  After decades of loyal service, Reis was about to defy orders. He took a calming breath. There is only this moment. He stared at Xec until the Triumvir felt the need to fill the uncomfortable silence with more bluster. As he opened his mouth, Reis cut him off. “Even now, with the enemy at our doorstep, your main concern is your own political future.”

  Xec realized his mouth was still hanging open and he snapped it shut.

  “You want to take me away from my fleet in the midst of a crisis. You want to stand me in the center of the chamber and claim that I was complicit in a military campaign to conceal defeats at Earth from the government and people of Dactar. Defeats that occurred while I was conducting counter-insurgency operations in the Ufanges sector.”

  The other two Triumvirs moved to flank Xec.

  Before either of them could lend their own arguments to the confrontation, Reis completed his transition to renegade. “The three of you are criminally incompetent and I no longer recognize your authority. I will not take up arms against the Republic, but I will defend myself if need be. I intend to employ my fleet in a manner that will best serve our people.”

  He nodded to Gelna, and both delegations disappeared.

  Uncivil Conflict

  Dactari Orbit

  Reis shuddered. It was jarring to see the conference room one instant, and your own bridge the next. He was standing in the middle of his command holo. The tertiary sub-flota who had served as a judge for Heig’s trial and execution was at the tactical station. “Rus,” he drew the young officer’s attention. “You are now the second.”

  Rus nodded grimly. He had been filling the role since Heig’s death, so it came as no surprise to hear it confirmed.

  “Fleet wide,” Reis ordered. “All vessels, this is Flota Reis. Our Triumvirs have betrayed the Republic. We must remove ourselves from orbit. I will not let them use our ships and troops against our own citizens. I also refuse to turn this fleet against our elected officials, as it would set a dangerous precedent. We must withdraw and hope that the citizens have the courage to set the government to rights.”

  “Sir, I’m reading pre-distortion energy spikes in the Alliance ships,” a junior officer called out.

  Reis turned to look at the enemy icons in his display. Blue halos were appearing around the ships, spreading out from the center as the slow radio signals reached out to the widely spread forces.

  He was telling the truth, Reis thought. They expect a full-blown civil war to break out.

  “They’re jumping,” the officer announced. “The mass drivers were in the first wave!”

  “What are our own forces doing?”

  A series of vector displays appeared on the green icons, showing the friendly dispositions.

  “They’re closing on us, sir,” Rus said quietly.

  Reis took a step toward his new second. “If I order a withdrawal,” he whispered, “will our ships follow?”

  Rus nodded. “Sir, we
knew this was a possibility when we backed Heig.” He pressed his tail against his own chest in a conciliatory gesture at this reminder of the mutiny. “We were pretty certain we’d end up tangling with our own people. You’ve achieved our aims; the least we can do is reward your earlier clemency with continued loyalty.” He frowned suddenly. “Not sure about the ships we took from Gaemhaeg, though.”

  “Most of them are between us and the rest of our forces. If it comes to a fight, they may well decide to run with us – the incoming ordinance will hit them first.” Reis waved toward the communications officer. “Signal the fleet to spin up their distortion drives. I want us ready to go on a heartbeat.”

  “Aye, sir,” the officer replied. “What destination?”

  Yaetho’kae is a logical choice. It isn’t Republic territory anymore and the enemy have yet to take over. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm, despite the approaching ships.

  The Alliance would like that, he thought. Going to Yaetho’kae would leave me in their debt, if not their direct control, and it would definitely brand us as traitors, once word got out that we had fled to Alliance territory. He looked up.

  “The Chaco system, third planet,” he ordered. “And give me a separate channel. Hail the incoming forces.”

  With the destination set and his ships spun up, Reis was suddenly eager to give the final order and get it over with, but he had one final task.

  “Flota Mas,” the voice boomed from the bridge acoustics, “this is Armada Oray Tsingava. You are ordered to stand down your forces and submit to military authority.”

  “Armada,” Reis replied. “The Triumvirs are traitors. Please promise me that you will not let them use you against our own citizens.” Though Reis no longer recognized the authority of the Triumvirs, it would be counterproductive to argue the validity of Tsingava’s promotion. “If our people demand a recall election, you must ensure that it happens.”

  “You will stand down or we will be forced to…”

  Reis made a cutting motion and the comms officer killed the channel. The fleet’s icons were all surrounded in blue.

  “Sir,” Rus stepped around to face him. “You’ve done what you can. Perhaps we should go before anyone starts shooting.”

  A shake of the head. “We need as many of the Gaemhaeg ships as we can get. If they’re unsure about leaving with us, a hail of hostile ordinance should help them make up their minds. We wait until the first shots are fired by Tsingava, then we can…”

  “They’re firing!” a sensor officer called out.

  Reis looked to see the inbound traces on the holo. “Execute the jump,” he ordered, sounding calmer than he felt.

  He had planned on conducting an asymmetrical campaign against the enemy, stirring unrest in Alliance territory. The Alliance had warned him against the Triumvirs, but they had done it out of self-interest. He owed them nothing.

  He had been counting on logistical support from home world, but that was hardly a precondition of his plan. He would have to work harder, but perhaps it was for the best. If his activities were uncovered by the enemy, it wouldn’t trace back to the Republic.

  After all, he was a renegade now.

  After Action

  Ten Minutes from Dactari Orbit

  Flemming sighed and turned away from the holo projection, pulling the carafe from Towers’ jury rigged coffee maker. “No civil war, but at least the enemy forces are now divided,” he said as he poured.

  “Divided but with a common purpose,” Harry approached with his own mug, embossed with a MoonSilver logo. Presh, his new capital, was the site of the very first outlet, and the revenues all flowed through Oaxes before remitting tax to the Republic – now the Alliance.

  The Republic would doubtless put a stop to revenues coming from their own worlds. Many large corporations would fracture as a result of the treaty.

  “You think he’ll keep fighting us?” Towers asked from his seat on the couch, raising an eyebrow before pointedly adjusting his gaze.

  Harry sighed, sliding the empty carafe back in and fishing out a fresh packet of grounds. “I hinted that Yaetho’kae would fall through the cracks for a few weeks at least. If he needed a place to refit and reorg, he could have gone there without any official interference from either side.”

  Caul shrugged. “He doesn’t want to feel beholden to us; we’re still enemies, after all.”

  “Exactly,” Harry emphasized as he dumped coffee into the hopper and opened the valve on a small copper line. “An enemy who specializes in asymmetrical warfare, though he’s used to being on the bigger end of the stick.”

  Flemming grimaced as he swallowed some of the black brew. The dairy industry seemed to be an Earth oddity. There was no real equivalent out here. “We were ceded some of the core planets – worlds the Dactari consider to be politically reliable. They won’t exactly welcome us with open arms.”

  “That’s got to be his plan,” Harry insisted over his shoulder. He shut off the valve and flipped the rocker switch to get the heating element running. “He’ll sneak in, provide training and weapons and then move on to the next world.”

  Flemming nodded. “He’ll stick to low-level insurgency – the kind of thing that won’t even show up on the Firm Resolve’s radar, or whatever the hell she uses.”

  “Well, that’s just lovely,” Towers muttered. He leaned back against the cushions, staring up at the pipes and conduits that snaked along every square inch of space on a military vessel. A large rat trundled along a water main, safely out of reach. “What assets can we use against him? I don’t like our odds if our soldiers have to start kicking in doors.”

  “Every single world has a strong organized criminal element.” Flemming sat down with his mug. He took another sip. “We could reach out to them, give them a free hand if they can maintain the status quo for us.” He shuddered at the strong taste. “Terrorist activity is rarely good for cash flow, and it erodes their power base.”

  “We tried using the Krypteia against the Dactari regulars,” Towers mused. “Now that it didn’t pan out, we’re about to use criminal syndicates against the Krypteia. What will we end up using against the syndicates, when that blows up in our faces?”

  He waved off his own question as rhetorical. “We’ll have to give it a try.” He stood, signalling the end of the meeting. “I swear to God, if this ends up with us using dogs because the cats didn’t work out, I’m gonna shoot someone.”

  He headed through the door that joined his quarters to the bridge. “Captain Hunter,” he called out as he crossed to the central command holo. “Hold until we confirm our guests are back aboard their own ships and then put us back on course for Weirfall.”

  He turned to find Flemming had followed him. “Commander, go through the personnel files and start putting the liaison teams together.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Syndicate liaison staff will have to accompany every single garrison we send out.”

  Flemming nodded and left for his office.

  Towers noticed Hunter looking over, no doubt wondering about the admiral’s sudden laugh.

  Towers grinned. “The help you get these days, Captain – I tell you, it’s criminal…”

  Unnoticed in his communications chair, Dwight was reaching out through the starboard bow of the vessel, searching for a path. He knew his target was in that general direction and there was no shortage of signals coming from it. He just had to reach out far enough to find them.

  It was gratifying, after his role in tearing Humanity apart, to find a way to start connecting them again.

  He was definitely developing a knack for path finding. He saw it as ‘pushing’ his consciousness in the right direction. He was pushing it far more quickly each time as his confidence grew. He was vaguely aware of background radiation and noise as he passed through various systems.

  And then he found what he was looking for. It was only noise, but it seemed to come from the right direction.

  The Yo’Thag
e brothers had given him a quick lesson in targeting. They were no experts themselves, but they were physicists, so they did their best to help him understand the science involved. Signal degradation had been one of the first lessons.

  “We call it the Double Quartering Law,” Qut had said. “As you double the distance from the source of a transmission, the signal strength is reduced to one quarter.” He’d waved his hands out in a fanning motion. “The signal spreads as it propagates.”

  Dwight had originally expected to find planets by zeroing in on their media signals, and he was doing exactly that, but the signals were never anything more than noise until he got to within a light year of the source.

  As he closed in on his target, the noise began to fall off. That was when he knew he was in the right place. On most worlds, there would be a steady increase in the signals. He would have been hearing thousands of broadcasts. Here there was only a nav beacon and a lonely, automated voice.

  “Warning, this planet is under quarantine due to a highly infectious disease. Extreme force will be directed against any ship attempting to land on or launch from the surface. All orbital facilities are likewise off limits. Any attempt at boarding will result in your destruction.”

  He pushed down toward the beacon, picking up light radio chatter as he closed in on his ultimate target. How did Shelby talk to them?

  “Petite Tortue Tower,” he spoke silently, his speech muscles moving, but producing no audible sound on the bridge, “this is Dr. Dwight Young. Do you read me, over?”

  “Dr. Young, Petite Tortue Tower. Good to have you back, Doc, but this channel is for air control only, over.”

  “Petite Tortue Tower, I’m not back,” Dwight replied. “This signal is originating from the fleet. We’re ten minutes out from Dactar.”

  A new voice answered him from Earth. “Dr. Young, Petite Tortue Tower. Say again, over.”